We're sending the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite to space to collect the most accurate data yet on global sea level and how our oceans are rising in response to climate change. This #SeeingTheSeas mission, a historic U.S.-European partnership, will launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 12:17 p.m. EST (9:17 a.m. PST, 5:17 p.m. UTC).

The satellite, and its twin Sentinel-6B, is jointly developed by ESA (European Space Agency), the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), NASA, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), with funding support from the European Commission and support from France's National Centre for Space Studies (CNES). Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich is named in honor of the former director of NASA's Earth Science Division, who was instrumental in advancing space-based ocean measurements.

About the mission: https://www.nasa.gov/sentinel-6