{"id":67894,"date":"2025-11-16T23:59:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T23:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=67894"},"modified":"2025-11-21T15:10:47","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T15:10:47","slug":"satellite-signatures-of-the-eumetsat-sentinel-6b-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/67894","title":{"rendered":"Satellite signatures of the EUMETSAT Sentinel-6B launch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div style=\"width: 3004px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2025\/11\/251117_goes18_abi16panel_Sentinel6B_launch.mp4\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2025\/11\/251117_0523utc_goes18_abi16panel_Sentinel6B_launch.png\" width=\"2994\" height=\"1668\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Multi-panel display of all 16 ABI spectral bands on GOES-18, from 0521-0524 UTC on 17 November [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>The EUMETSAT Sentinel-6B satellite was launched from Vandenberg Space Force Center in California at 0521 UTC on 17 November 2025 (9:21 PM Pacific Time on 16 November). A 1-minute multi-panel display of all 16 ABI spectral bands on the GOES-18 <em>(GOES-West)<\/em>\u00a0satellite <em><strong>(above)<\/strong><\/em> showed that a thermal signature of the Falcon 9 rocket booster was evident in many of the spectral bands &#8212; particularly the Near-Infrared bands 03\/04\/05\/06 and Infrared bands 07\/08\/09\/10 and 16. However, subtle thermal signatures could be seen in the other Infrared spectral bands as well.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, a signature of the glaciated rocket condensation cloud (darker blue pixels) was seen in Nighttime Microphysics RGB images <em><strong>(below)<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0as it drifted eastward away from the launch site.<\/p>\n<p><div style=\"width: 1307px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2025\/11\/goeswest_abi_radm1_true_color_night_s20251117052125_e20251117053625_f16.mp4\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2025\/11\/goeswest_abi_radm1_true_color_night_20251117052425.png\" width=\"1297\" height=\"734\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">1-minute GOES-18 Nighttime Microphysics RGB images, from 0521-0536 UTC on 17 November [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>A plot of 0000 UTC rawinsonde data from Vandenberg <em><strong>(below)<\/strong><\/em> showed the presence of westerly winds throughout the depth of the troposphere, which were responsible for the eastward drift of the rocket booster condensation cloud.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 3004px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2025\/11\/251117_0000utc_kvbg_raob.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2025\/11\/251117_0000utc_kvbg_raob.png\" width=\"2994\" height=\"1668\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Plot of rawinsonde data from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California at 0000 UTC on 17 November [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The EUMETSAT Sentinel-6B satellite was launched from Vandenberg Space Force Center in California at 0521 UTC on 17 November 2025 (9:21 PM Pacific Time on 16 November). A 1-minute multi-panel display of all 16 ABI spectral bands on the GOES-18 (GOES-West)\u00a0satellite (above) showed that a thermal signature of the Falcon 9 rocket booster was evident [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":67895,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[114,45,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-goes-18","category-redgreenblue-rgb-images","category-rocket-signatures"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67894"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67941,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67894\/revisions\/67941"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}