The Sentinel-6 Michael Frelich spacecraft is now its final preparations as the launch is targeted for November 21, 2020. The protective nosecone will ride atop of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. This world's latest Earth-observing satellite will be launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Project manager Pierrik Vuilleumier of ESA said, "Soon, we'll be watching
the satellite on its journey into Earth orbit 830 miles above our
planet." and Parag Vaze of NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California said "We're almost there,".
This mission is for tracking the sea level rise caused by climate change. Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich will play a major role in this mission. The spacecraft will collect all the data related to sea level rise, which further will provide information to support coastal
management and with planning for floods, while its atmospheric
measurements will enhance weather and hurricane forecasts. The mission will also collect crucial data of atmospheric
temperature and humidity that will help improve weather forecasts and climate
models.
Sentinel-6 is jointly developed by Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, NASA,
and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The
spacecraft is named after Dr. Michael Freilich, the former director of NASA's
Earth Science Division.
Director of NASA's Earth Science Division said, "This continuous record of observations is essential for
tracking sea level rise and understanding the factors that contribute to it," and "With
Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, we ensure those measurements advance both in
number and in precision. This mission honors an exceptional scientist and
leader, and it will continue Mike's legacy of advances in ocean studies."
How Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich Works
By the 1980s, scientists started to measure the slight
delays in radio signals from Earth-orbiting navigation satellites to understand the atmosphere of Earth. From then, lots of radio occultation instruments have been launched.
In 1965 radio occutlation was first used by NASA. When the spacecraft named Mariner 4 flew past Mars, scientists detected slight delays in its radio
transmissions as they traveled through atmospheric gases. After analyzing these radio signals, scientists got the first measurement of the Martian atmosphere and they found Mars' atmosphere was thinner than our Earth's.
The Sentinel-6 instrument has higher
measurement precision and greater atmospheric penetration depth.
It will peer deep into Earth's atmosphere with what's
called Global Navigation Satellite System - Radio Occultation (GNSS-RO) to
collect highly accurate global temperature and humidity information. Developed
by JPL, the spacecraft's GNSS-RO instrument tracks radio signals from
navigation satellites to measure the physical properties of Earth's atmosphere.
As a radio signal passes through the atmosphere, it slows, its frequency changes,
and its path bends. Called refraction, this effect can be used by scientists to
measure minute changes in atmospheric physical properties, such as density,
temperature, and moisture content.
The GNSS-RO instrument's receivers can detect navigation satellite radio signals through the vertical extent of the atmosphere, through thick cloud or from the very top.
Scientists said, any kind of minuscule changes can be measured by the instrument related to the density of the atmosphere. After that, this will be easy to precisely determine the temperature, pressure, and humidity through
the layers of the atmosphere, which give us incredible insights to our planet's
dynamic climate and weather.
More About Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich
1. The spacecraft will help scientists to understand how climate change is reshaping Earth's coastlines and at which pace this is happening. Scientists say, sea absorbs more than 90% of the heat from the rising greenhouse gases which results seawater to expand. This expansion is 1/3rd of the modern-day sea level rise while rest is from melt water from glaciers and ice sheets. Sea level rising will change coastlines and increase flooding from tides
and storms. Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich will help scientists to better understand how rising seas will impact humanity.
2. Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich can collect measurements at higher resolution. A new technology which has been included in the Advanced
Microwave Radiometer (AMR-C) instrument, will help researchers to see smaller, more complicated
ocean features like the Gulf Stream
and weather phenomena like El Niño and La Niña that stretch over thousands of
miles, especially near the coastlines.
3. A science instrument named radio occultation will be used on Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich to measure the physical
properties of Earth's atmosphere. The Global Navigation Satellite
System - Radio Occultation (GNSS-RO) instrument
tracks radio signals from navigation satellites that orbit Earth. When a satellite
dips below (or rises above) the horizon from Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich's
perspective, its radio signal passes through the atmosphere. As it does, the
signal slows, its frequency changes, and its path bends. Called refraction,
this effect can be used by scientists to measure minute changes in atmospheric
density, temperature, and moisture content.
4. Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich will help meteorologists to improve weather forecasts. The radar altimeter of the satellite will collect data of sea surface condition such as significant wave heights and the data from GNSS-RO instrument will complement existing observations of the atmosphere. Those data will help meteorologists to improve weather forecasts. Data on the temperature and
humidity of the atmosphere and the temperature of the upper layer of
the ocean will help to track the formation and evolution of hurricanes.
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