As one who spent a good portion of his career in space launch and operations, as wonderful as the SpaceX launch vehicle performed--and it was superb--the mission (payload) is what most interests me. It is an all-weather, day-night, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) mission, capable of imaging the Earth using microwave pulses which penetrate clouds, and even dust storms or volcanic activity. From its near polar, sun-synchronous orbit (meaning it passes over the same spot on the Earth at roughly the same time, each day), this mission should be capable of producing even more sophisticated products, including highly sensitive interferometry and coherent change detection. The remote sensing data collected from this mission covers a broad range of valuable applications.