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An ocean monitoring satellite will have to wait at least 11 more days to enter space.
The US-European Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite mission is now scheduled to launch on Saturday, November 21 at 12:17 pm EST (1717 GMT) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. This is a delay from the first launch date of November 10th.
SpaceX’s launch was delayed following problems with the Falcon 9 rocket line that halted the launch of a GPS satellite for the US Air Force on October 2. So far, however, there are no delays for the commercial crew’s first operational mission, Crew-1, which will also use a Falcon 9 rocket to carry astronauts to the International Space Station. NASA added that the launch date scheduled for Saturday November 14 for Crew-1 remains unchanged at this time.
Sentinel-6: This new satellite will help us understand the impacts of climate change
In a virtual press conference on Oct.16, NASA Launch Services Program Director Tim Dunn said SpaceX was working on resolving an issue with the rocket gas generator accused of disrupting the launch of the GPS satellite. “Like today [Oct. 16] we have a path forward that allows us to do any necessary rework that would be required and keep that November 10 launch date, ”Dunn said at the press conference.
But in a more recent release from NASA, the agency said SpaceX will use the delay to finish testing and inspecting the Merlin engine on the Falcon 9, in light of the outage.
“After completing engine testing and inspections, the NASA and SpaceX teams determined that two engines on the first stage of the Sentinel-6 rocket should be replaced to ensure optimum performance during launch,” NASA said in the statement. on Tuesdays (November 3.). “Work is underway to implement the engine modification and all hardware replacements of the engine will finish next week.”
Sentinel-6 will join a rapidly growing network of Earth observation satellites that monitor our planet’s global warming. Some of the major contributions of the new mission will be a better understanding of the sources of sea rise and the movements of deep ocean currents.
Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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