Sentinel-6 (previously called JASON-CS) is a joint ESA-NASA-NOAA radar altimetry satellite series, designed to measure topography of oceans, rivers, lakes, and other water systems. It is part of Europe's Copernicus programme, and managed jointly by EUMETSAT and NASA. Its primary instruments are the Poseidon-4 synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) altimeter, and Advanced Microwave Radiometer for Climate (AMR-C). It also carries a set of instruments to determine its orbital position with extreme accuracy, called the Precise Orbit Determination (POD) Package, which is necessary to properly correlate its measurements with geography
Two satellites are planned: Sentinel-6A (renamed Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich after launch, after a former director of NASA's Earth Science division) was launched in November 2020 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Sentinel-6B is also scheduled to launch on Falcon 9 sometime in 2025. The spacecraft were built by Airbus Defense and Space
Changelog:
November 20 2020: Initial upload
December 22 2022: Updated .blend file for Blender 3.3, small material tweaks, added exports for additional formats