Spaceflight Now: A new satellite built to extend a 24-year series of joint U.S.-European ocean observatories climbed away from a foggy California launch pad and sailed into orbit more than 800 miles above Earth on Sunday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The Jason 3 satellite is kicking off a five-year mission to precisely measure ocean waves, maritime winds, ocean currents and sea level rise for a consortium of scientific institutions in the United States and Europe.
The spacecraft lifted off at 10:42:18 a.m....