Vandenberg is launching another SpaceX rocket — with a NASA satellite onboard

NASA will target a November departure aboard a Falcon 9 rocket for its newest ocean observatory from Vandenberg Air Force Base.

The space agency’s Launch Services Program announced on Twitter it would target Nov. 10 for the blastoff of the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich.

The satellite will get a ride into orbit aboard a Space Exploration Technologies rocket set to launch from the Space Launch Complex-4 on the South Base.

NASA did not release the planned launch time, which will be selected based on where the spacecraft needs to be placed in space.

The November NASA launch will include a return-to-land attempt for the Falcon rocket’s first-stage booster at the South Base — “always a crowd-pleaser,” Col. Anthony Mastalir, 30th Space Wing commander, said in early August.

Following a number of unarmed missile tests, this could be the first rocket launch of 2020 from Vandenberg, which is seeing an especially slow launch year.

Launch manifests are built based on satellites needing rides to space, and this year has been slower than usual, especially since SpaceX relocated one commercial rocket mission to the East Coast instead of Vandenberg.

A SpaceX leader previously said that moving the mission to Florida, for a rare East Coast polar orbit launch that occurred last week, allowed the firm to trim staffing levels at Vandenberg during a slow launch period, according to SpaceFlightNow.com.

To ready the ocean observatory for its ride to space, engineers from the United States and Europe have put the house-shaped Sentinel-6 through a battery of tests.

NASA contends that the state-of-the-art Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite will collect the most accurate data yet on sea level — a key symptom regarding how Earth’s warming climate is affecting the oceans, weather and coastlines.

The series of tests on the satellite, being built in Germany, began in November 2019 to ensure it can withstand the ride to orbit and harsh environment of space.

“If it can survive all the abuse we deliberately put it through on the ground, then it’s ready for space,” said John Oswald, the mission’s deputy project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

The Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich spacecraft is a part of a joint U.S.-European mission involving two identical satellites to be launched five years apart. The twin, Sentinel-6B, is scheduled to launch in 2025 to take over for its predecessor.

Once in orbit, each satellite will collect sea level measurements down to the centimeter for 90 percent of the world’s oceans, adding to previous data collected over 30 years including the TOPEX/Poseidon and the Jason series of satellites.

In addition to NASA, others involved include the European Space Agency, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETAT) and the United States’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The European Commission is providing funding support. France’s space agency, the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, is also supporting the mission.

Earlier this year, NASA announced that the satellite had been named in honor of former Earth Science Division Director Michael Freilich, who died in early August.

Freilich was a frequent visitor to Vandenberg in connection with launches of Earth Science Division satellites.

“Mike wept openly as he signed the launch vehicle for IceSat2, his last launch as Earth Science director. It was a testament to how much being able to work on missions that helped us to better understand our planet and improve life across it meant to him,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement after Freilich’s death.

IceSat-2 launched in September 2018 from Vandenberg aboard the final Delta II rocket.

This story was originally published September 12, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Vandenberg is launching another SpaceX rocket — with a NASA satellite onboard."