Watch SpaceX launch highly effective ocean-mapping satellite tv for pc for Europe and NASA early Nov. 17

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.

The Sentinel-6B spacecraft is scheduled to carry off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Monday at 12:21 a.m. EDT (0521 GMT; 9:21 p.m. on Nov. 16 native California time).

You can watch the launch reside right here at Space.com courtesy of NASA, or immediately by way of the area company. Coverage will start at 11:30 p.m. EDT on Sunday (Nov. 16; 0430 GMT on Nov. 17).

Sentinel-6B is a part of the European Union’s Copernicus Earth-observing program. The 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 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 that work utilizing a radar altimeter instrument developed by ESA. The satellite tv for pc additionally carries a NASA-provided microwave radiometer, which is able to decide atmospheric water content material, permitting for extra correct interpretation of the altimeter’s outcomes.

During its first 12 months of observations, Sentinel-6B will work with Sentinel 6 Michael Frelich, “enabling greater accuracy with precise cross-calibration between the two instruments,” ESA officers wrote concerning the mission, which is a collaboration among the many European Commission, ESA, NASA, Eumetsat, and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with assist from the French area company CNES.

If all goes in keeping with plan on Monday morning, the Falcon 9’s higher stage will deploy Sentinel-6B about 57 minutes after liftoff. The 3,175-pound (1,440 kilograms) satellite tv for pc will then make its approach 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 would be the third flight for this explicit booster; its earlier two missions lofted batches of SpaceX‘s Starlink broadband satellites, according to the company.