SpaceX launches NASA-European satellite to monitor rising sea levels
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Summary
The first of two satellites in a billion-dollar NASA-European project to precisely measure rising sea levels, a major consequence of global warming, streaked into orbit from California Saturday atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.By timing how long it takes cloud-penetrating radar beams to bounce back from the ocean 830 miles below, the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite can track sea levels to an accuracy of less than half an inch to help scientists chart the ongoing effects of global warming over extended periods.Named after the late director of NASA's Earth Science Division, "it's the satellite so nice we built it twice," said project scientist Josh Willis at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The Sentinel-6 satellites will continue a decades-long effort by NASA, the European Space Agency, the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to monitor sea levels over the past 30 years.With the launch of Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich and Sentinel-6B, those measurements will be extended into the 2030s.
As said here by William Harwood