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SpaceX will launch a sophisticated ocean-mapping satellite tv for pc from California early Monday morning (Nov. 17), and you’ll watch the motion reside.
Sentinel-6B is a part of the European Union’s Copernicus Earth-observing program. The brand new satellite tv for pc will measure sea floor heights across the globe with nice accuracy, persevering with the work of its predecessor, Sentinel 6 Michael Frelich, which launched atop a Falcon 9 in November 2020.
“Monitoring sea-level rise is excessive on the worldwide agenda,” European House Company (ESA) officers wrote in a Sentinel-6B mission description.
“Prior to now 25 years, the common peak of the world’s oceans has risen by virtually 10 cm [4 inches], in accordance with information from Copernicus,” they added. “The Copernicus Sentinel-6 mission has grow to be the gold normal reference mission to watch and report this key consequence of local weather change.”
Sentinel-6B will do that work utilizing a radar altimeter instrument developed by ESA. The satellite tv for pc additionally carries a NASA-provided microwave radiometer, which can decide atmospheric water content material, permitting for extra correct interpretation of the altimeter’s outcomes.
Throughout its first yr of observations, Sentinel-6B will work with Sentinel 6 Michael Frelich, “enabling higher accuracy with exact cross-calibration between the 2 devices,” ESA officers wrote concerning the mission, which is a collaboration among the many European Fee, ESA, NASA, Eumetsat, and the U.S. Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with assist from the French area company CNES.
If all goes in accordance with plan on Monday morning, the Falcon 9’s higher stage will deploy Sentinel-6B about 57 minutes after liftoff. The three,175-pound (1,440 kilograms) satellite tv for pc will then make its method to its science orbit, which lies 830 miles (1,336 kilometers) above Earth.
The Falcon 9’s first stage, in the meantime, will come again to Vandenberg for a touchdown about 9 minutes after liftoff. It is going to be the third flight for this specific booster; its earlier two missions lofted batches of SpaceX‘s Starlink broadband satellites, in accordance with the corporate.
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