ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity Mission - Mission Status and Performance

Abstract

The scientific objectives of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission directly respond to the need for global observations of soil moisture and ocean salinity, two key variables used in predictive hydrological, oceanographic and atmospheric models. SMOS observations also provide information on the characterisation of ice and snow covered surfaces and the sea ice effect on ocean-atmosphere heat fluxes and dynamics, which affects large-scale processes of the Earth’s climate system. This paper will 1. Provide an overview and update on theperformance of the mission after 5 years in orbit, summarising the technical and scientific status of the mission and the plan for mission extension. SMOS was the first satellite mission operating in the ITU resolution 750 (WRC-12) protected L-Band. Nevertheless strong interference sources have been detected worldwide. The paper will provide an update on the improvements made with regards to the RFI situation and its effect on the data. The paper will also provide an overview on the MIRAS instrument performance, including the instrument calibration and level 1 brightness temperature data processing. 2. Provide information on the recent evolution of the SMOS data products, in particular focussing on the recent improvements in the drifts and spatial biases in the level 1 brightness temperatures and its impact on the level 2 data products. Further to the already available level 1 near-real time (NRT) data products distributed by ESA, WMO’s GTS and EUMETSAT’s EUMETCast systems, new operational data products are under development, based on the requirements from the continuously growing user community. The paper will provide information about present and future dataproduct development, with a focus for applications over ocean. 3. Provide information on how to address the detailed recommendations that were made by ESA’s Earth Science Advisory Committee as part of the recent mid-term mission extension review, outlining the objectives for the extended mission operations. 4. Summarise the collaboration with other space-borne L-band sensors, such as NASA’s Aquarius and SMAP missions