Reconstruction of the ionospheric 3D electron density distribution by assimilation of ionosonde measurements and operational TEC estimation

New methods to generate maps of the F2 layer peak electron density of the ionosphere (NmF2) and to reconstruct \nthe ionospheric 3D electron density distribution is presented. As data base for our reconstruction approaches we use the vertical sounding measurements of the ionosonde stations providing foF2 and routinely generated TEC maps in SWACI (http://swaciweb.dlr.de) at DLR Neustrelitz. The basic concept of our approach is the following: To reconstruct NmF2 maps we assimilate the ionosonde data into the global Neustrelitz F2 layer Peak electron Density Model (NPDM) by means of the Successive Corrections Method. The TEC maps are produced by assimilating actual ground based GPS measurements providing TEC into an operational version of Neustrelitz TEC Model (NTCM). Finally, the derived NmF2 and TEC maps in tandem with a new approach of a DLR internal empirical 3D electron density model is used to reconstruct the actual spatial electron density distribution of the ionosphere.