Total failure of GPS during a solar flare on December 6, 2006

The solar are of class X6.5 recorded from 18:29 to 19:00 UT on December 6, 2006, strongly interested not only astronomers and radioastronomers, but also a wide range of scientists and engineers. This are was far from the strongest one in the X-ray and UV ranges. However, the broadband solar radioemission (hereafter, BSR), which followed the are from 19:25 to 19:40 UT, was at least two to three orders of magnitude stronger than all previously known ares. This radiation was responsible for malfunctioning of broadband satellite radio systems, including the GPS navigation system. Malfunctioning was noted at some GPS receiving stations, while prolonged signal fades were recorded at the specialized receiving monitors of ionospheric scintillation recorders [1]. However, the scale of damage of the entire positioning system based on the GPS system during the are remains unknown. No doubt, this issue is of scientic and practical interest from the point of view of estimating the inuence of space weather on the functioning of the widely used satellite system, which was considered practically invulnerable and completely reliable. The objective of this work is to analyze malfunctions of the GPS navigation system based on the data of the global network of land-based GPS receivers.