\tApplications<\/p>\n
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Following its arrival in California a few weeks ago, the time has come for spacecraft engineers to ready the next sea-level monitoring satellite, Copernicus Sentinel-6B, for launch, which is slated for November.<\/p>\n
The first step has been to carefully remove this precious new satellite from its storage container and to start a series of comprehensive checks.<\/p>\n
Sentinel-6B is set to carry forward the legacy of Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich \u2013 the first Sentinel-6 satellite, launched in November 2020. The Sentinel-6 mission serves as the world\u2019s primary reference mission for radar altimetry to extend the continuous record of sea-surface height measurements that began in the early 1990s by the French\u2013US Topex Poseidon satellite and then by the Jason series of satellite missions.<\/p>\n
With sea-level rise high on the global agenda, numerous organisations have worked to make Copernicus Sentinel-6 the gold-standard reference mission for extending the record of sea-surface height measurements \u2013 delivering data with greater precision than ever before.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCopernicus Sentinel-6 radar altimeter<\/a><\/p>\n Although part of the European Union\u2019s family of Copernicus missions, Sentinel-6 is the product of exceptional international cooperation, involving the European Commission, ESA, NASA, EUMETSAT, and NOAA, with additional support from the French space agency CNES.<\/p>\n As well as mapping the height of the sea surface to understand long-term change, Copernicus Sentinel-6 also provides data for practical \u2018operational\u2019 applications. For example, the mission measures significant wave height and wind speed, data that are used for near-real time ocean forecasting. In fact, satellite altimetry provides the most comprehensive ocean sea-state measurements available today.<\/p>\n The Sentinel-6 satellites carry an altimeter that works by measuring the time it takes for radar pulses to travel to Earth\u2019s surface and back again to the satellite. Combined with precise satellite location data, altimetry measurements yield the height of the sea surface.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tSix key facts about Copernicus Sentinel-6<\/a><\/p>\n The satellites\u2019 instrument package also includes an advanced microwave radiometer provided by NASA. Water vapour in the atmosphere affects the speed of the altimeter\u2019s radar pulses \u2013 and therefore estimates of sea-surface height. The advanced microwave radiometer accounts this water vapour to ensure that measurements are accurate.<\/p>\n Following its\u00a0voyage by ship<\/a>\u00a0from Germany to Texas in the US and then carried by truck to California<\/a>, the\u00a0Copernicus Sentinel-6B\u00a0satellite arrived at a NASA facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California in August.<\/p>\n And now, after being stored in NASA\u2019s facilities at the Vandenberg Space Force Base, the satellite has been transferred to the Astrotech Space Operations processing facility where it was unpacked and is now being carefully inspected.<\/p>\n