SpaceX launched an advanced ocean-mapping satellite to orbit from California early Monday morning (Nov. 17).
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The Copernicus Sentinel-6B ocean-monitoring satellite is prepped for launch in California. (Image credit: USSF 30th Space Wing)
Sentinel-6B is part of the European Union’s Copernicus Earth-observing program. The new satellite will measure sea surface heights around the globe with great accuracy, continuing the work of its predecessor, Sentinel 6 Michael Frelich, which launched atop a Falcon 9 in November 2020.
“Monitoring sea-level rise is high on the global agenda,” European Space Agency (ESA) officials wrote in a Sentinel-6B mission description.
“In the past 25 years, the average height of the world’s oceans has risen by almost 10 cm [4 inches], according to data from Copernicus,” they added. “The Copernicus Sentinel-6 mission has become the gold standard reference mission to monitor and record this key consequence of climate change.”
Sentinel-6B will do this work using a radar altimeter instrument developed by ESA. The satellite also carries a NASA-provided microwave radiometer, which will determine atmospheric water content, allowing for more accurate interpretation of the altimeter’s results.
During its first year of observations, Sentinel-6B will work with Sentinel 6 Michael Frelich, “enabling greater accuracy with precise cross-calibration between the two instruments,” ESA officials wrote about the mission, which is a collaboration among the European Commission, ESA, NASA, Eumetsat, and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with support from the French space agency CNES.
If all goes according to plan on Monday morning, the Falcon 9’s upper stage will deploy Sentinel-6B about 57 minutes after liftoff. The 3,175-pound (1,440 kilograms) satellite will then make its way to its science orbit, which lies 830 miles (1,336 kilometers) above Earth.
The Falcon 9’s first stage, meanwhile, came back to Vandenberg for a landing about nine minutes after liftoff as planned It was the third flight for this particular booster; its previous two missions lofted batches of SpaceX’s Starlink broadband satellites, according to the company.
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 12:33 a.m. ET on Nov. 17 with news of successful launch and rocket landing.
