NASA selects SpaceX to provide launch services for Sentinel-6B mission

NASA has awarded Elon Musk's SpaceX a contract worth approximately $94 million to provide launch services for the Sentinel-6B mission - an international partnership between the U.S. and Europe to continue global sea level observations for at least the next decade.

The Sentinel-6B mission is targeted to launch in November 2025, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The ocean-monitoring satellite will join its twin Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, which launched in November 2020 aboard a Falcon 9 rocket.

🚀🛰@NASA has selected @SpaceX to provide launch services for the #Sentinel6B mission which will continue the long-term global sea level data record begun in 1992. It will join its twin satellite Sentinel-6 MF in #SeeingTheSeas!Details of the award ➡️ https://t.co/TJK6H4rFCO pic.twitter.com/1TfS3Z4obc

— NASA's Launch Services Program (@NASA_LSP) December 20, 2022

According to NASA's press release, Sentinel-6B will use a radar altimeter to bounce signals off the ocean surface and deliver continuity of ocean topography measurements. The mission also will collect high-resolution vertical profiles of temperature, using the Global Navigation Satellite System Radio-Occultation sounding technique, to assess temperature changes in Earth's atmosphere and improve weather prediction models.

The satellite is being jointly developed by NASA, ESA (European Space Agency), the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).