A ‘golden house’ is orbiting Earth! SpaceX launched the unique spacecraft to orbit this morning. It is the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich ocean observatory, named in honor of former Head of NASA’s Earth Science Division who passed away of cancer in August. The satellite will soon beam the most accurate information of Earth’s oceans which will help meterologists and scientists forecast weather events, like hurricanes, track climate change and rising sea levels. “At NASA, what we do is, we use the vantage point of space to get a global view of the Earth. And in this case, Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich is going to give us a global view of the sea surface height,” Karen St. Germain Director of NASA’s Earth Science Division stated. “The changing Earth processes are affecting sea level globally, but the impact on local communities varies widely. International collaboration is critical to both understanding these changes and informing coastal communities around the world,” she said. Sentinel-6 is a joint project between NASA and the European Aerospace Agency (ESA).

The house-shaped satellite was deployed to orbit atop SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket that lifted off at 9:17 a.m. PST from Space Launch Complex 4E at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base.