Copernicus Sentinel-6 measuring sea levels using radar altimetry

 

This November the newest member of the EU’s Copernicus programme, Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, will take to the heavens from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The satellite is named after NASA’s former Director of Earth Observation and is a radar altimetry mission to monitor sea-level rise, wave-height and windspeed.

The mission is a collaboration between ESA, the European Commission, EUMETSAT, NASA and NOAA, with support from the French space agency CNES.

It will continue a three-decade-long time-series of radar altimetry missions that started with the Topex-Poseidon mission and was then followed by the Jason missions.

 

With global mean sea level rising because of climate change, Copernicus Sentinel-6 is the next radar altimetry reference mission to extend the legacy of sea-surface height measurements until at least 2030. 

Launch : 21 November 2020