On Sunday, November 16 at 9:21 p.m. PT, Falcon 9 launched NASA’s Sentinel-6B mission from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. 

This was the third flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously supported two Starlink missions. Following stage separation, the first stage landed on Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4) at Vandenberg Space Force Base.

Sentinel-6B will use radar to bounce signals off of the ocean surface to deliver continuous ocean topography measurements. The mission also will collect high-resolution vertical profiles of temperature to assess temperature changes in Earth’s atmosphere and improve weather prediction models. It took over from Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, a twin of Sentinel-6B, which Falcon 9 launched five years ago from SLC-4E on November 21, 2020.


There was a possibility that residents of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Ventura counties heard  one or more sonic booms during the launch, but what residents experienced depended on weather and other conditions.