Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity

SMOS

Mission Profile

SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) is an ESA Earth Explorer mission launched on 2 November 2009 aboard a Rokot rocket as part of the Living Planet Programme, dedicated to measuring two critical variables of the global water cycle: soil moisture over land and sea surface salinity over the oceans. Using a novel L-band synthetic aperture radiometer called MIRAS — an interferometric array of 69 small antennas deployed in a Y-configuration — SMOS provides global maps of soil moisture with 35-50 km resolution every 3 days. SMOS data improves weather forecasting, climate modeling, and drought monitoring while its ocean salinity measurements reveal ocean circulation patterns linked to climate variability. Operating well past its designed 5-year lifetime, SMOS continues providing unique data irreplaceable for Earth system science.