Ionospheric hole made by the 2012 North Korean rocket observed with a dense GNSS array in Japan

A dense array of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers is useful to study ionospheric disturbances. Here we report observations by a Japanese GNSS array of an ionospheric hole, i.e., localized electron depletion, made by water vapor molecules in the exhaust plume of the second-stage engine of the Unha-3 rocket launched from North Korea, on 12 December 2012. The Russian GNSS was used for the first time to observe such an ionospheric hole. The hole emerged ∼6 min after the launch above the middle of the Yellow Sea, and its size and depth suggest that the Unha-3 is slightly less powerful than the 2009 Taepodong-2 missile, also from North Korea. Smaller-scale electron depletion signatures appeared ∼10 min after the launch above the southern East China Sea, which is possibly caused by the exhaust plume of the third-stage engine.