SpaceX Receives $94M NASA Contract to Launch 2nd 'Sentinel-6' Sea Level Observation Satellite

SpaceX has secured a $94 million firm-fixed-price contract to deploy a twin of the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich spacecraft in November 2025 for a joint U.S.-European mission to measure global sea levels.

NASA said Wednesday the Hawthorne, California-based company will help launch the Sentinel-6B mission at Vandenberg Space Force Base aboard a Falcon 9 rocket.

Elon Musk’s space exploration venture sent the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite into orbit in November 2020 for the Jason Continuity of Service program, an international cooperation with the goal of extending collections of data on oceanographic topography and atmospheric temperature and humidity beyond 2030.

Sentinel-6B will be built with onboard instruments such as a radar altimeter, radio occultation antennas and a microwave radiometer.

The European Space Agency and the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites cooperate with NASA on the program.