Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS)
The SMOS satellite was launched on 2nd November 2009, making it the first satellite to provide continuous multi-angular L-band (1.4GHz) radiometric measurements over the globe. Over continental surfaces, SMOS provides near-surface soil moisture data at ~50km resolution with a repeat cycle of 2-3 days. The payload is a 2D interferometer yielding a range of incidence angles from 0° to 55° at both V and H polarisations, and a 1,000km swath width. Its multi-incidence angle capability is expected to assist in determining ancillary data requirements such as vegetation attenuation. This satellite has a 6:00am/pm equator overpass time (6:00am local solar time at ascending node). Due to the synthetic aperture approach of this satellite, brightness temperature observations will be processed onto a fixed hexagonal grid with an approximately 12km node separation. While the actual footprint size will vary according to position in the swath, incidence angle etc., it will be approximately 42km diameter on average. The features of SMOS are summarized below. SMOS data can be downloaded from ESA.
Mission |
SMOS |
Sensor |
Microwave Imaging Radiometer using Aperture Synthesis (MIRAS) using passive microwave 2D-interferometer concept |
Spacecraft |
SMOS |
Launch date |
2nd, Nov. 2009 |
Design life |
Minimum 3 years |
Orbit |
Sun-synchronous, dawn/dusk, quasi-circular orbit at altitude 758km. 6.00am local solar time at ascending node. |
Spacecraft operations control centre |
CNES, Toulouse, France |
Centre frequency (GHz) |
1.413 (L-band; 21cm) |
Band width (MHz) |
24 |
Polarisation |
H & V (polarimetric mode optional) |
Incidence angle(°) |
0-55 |
Swath (km) |
1000 |
Spatial resolution (km) |
35 at centre of field of view |
Radiometric resolution (K) |
0.8-2.2 |
Temporal resolution |
3 days revisit at Equator |
The SMOS overpass times for the SMAPEx study area have been determined from the ESOV software based on the OSF file of 18th, Dec. 2009, and are provided in the table below. Date and time are in UTC.
●=full SMOS coverage of airborne box; ○=partial SMOS coverage
●=concurrent; ●=non concurrent
Date (UTC) |
SMOS (UTC) |
Flight Type |
04/12/2010 |
●20:29 |
●Regional
|
05/12/2010 |
●07:37 |
●Target YA
|
06/12/2010 |
○20:51 |
●Regional
|
07/12/2010 |
●07:57 |
●Multi-angle
●PALSAR transect
●Multi-azimuth
|
08/12/2010 |
- |
Regional
|
09/12/2010 |
●20:35 |
-
|