SMOS Officially Begins Science Missions

Officials at the European Space Agency (ESA) announced that their SMOS satellite officially finished its planned commissioning phase last week. This means that the observatory has begun its actual science phase, which is a major milestone for the mission. The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity satellite was launched on November 2, 2009, and scientists have been testing its advanced instrument ever since. ESA experts say that the data SMOS will collect will help the international scientific community to better understand the water cycle that governs our planet.

Both ocean salinity and soil moisture play a pivotal part in determining the way in which water spreads across the planet, in how much of it gets trapped in glaciers, and in how precipitation patterns develop. Having a clear understanding of what's going on underground and underwater is therefore essential for gathering as many pieces to this puzzle as possible. This is one of the main reasons why engineers in charge of the mission took so much time in getting the satellite ready for work. Calibrating its instruments is not an easy task, if the information they collect is to be trusted, ESA believes.

With the formal closure of the project, Achim Hahne, the ESA project manager, transferred control over the mission to the SMOS mission manager, Susanne Mecklenburg (also at ESA). The new leader will be in charge of securing all the data the satellite supplies, and of delivering it to the scientific community. Hahne was in charge of this project for nine years, ever since it was first selected for development, back in 2001.

“I would like to thank all my colleagues in ESA, CNES and industry for their excellent work in taking this mission off the drawing board and into orbit. It's been a privilege to have worked on this novel mission, which not only provides essential information to help further our understanding of the Earth system, but also demonstrates the excellence of European technology. From now on, our baby will be the in capable hands of Susanne and we look forward to seeing how SMOS's eagerly awaited data will contribute to Earth science and be used in practical applications,” Hahne said.

“So far, the mission has been progressing really well and we have been very happy to see what the scientific community has already been able to achieve with the data. Brightness temperature data will be released in June and soil moisture and ocean salinity data will be available in September after further validation,” Mecklenburg concluded.