Disturbances of the ionosphere of blast and acoustic waves generated at ionospheric heights by rockets

In this paper we present a model, which describes the propagation of acoustic impulses produced by flight of rockets through a model terrestrial atmosphere, and effect of these impulses onto the ionosphere above a rocket. We show, that experimentally observed ionospheric disturbances with duration about 300 s cannot be explained by effect of acoustic impulses onto the ionosphere. We have calculated parameters of a blast wave produced by launch vehicle on the ionospheric heights. It was shown that the blast wave is intense and this wave can generate great disturbance of electron density. The disturbance of electron density can exceed the ambient electron density in 2.6 times. We supposed that the observed ionospheric disturbances might be produced by propagation of delayed magnetoacoustic wave, which, in turn, was produced by the blast wave. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.