Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich Satellite is Set for Launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

 

The world's latest Earth-observing satellite, Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, is set for launch on Nov. 21 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The satellite will closely monitor sea level and it will provide atmospheric data to support weather forecasting and climate models. 

 

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.

 

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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