Abstract
The launch of the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission on 2 November 2009 marked a milestone in remote sensing for it was the first time a radiometer capable of acquiring wide field of view images at every single snapshot, a unique feature of the synthetic aperture technique, made it to space. The technology behind such an achievement was developed, thanks to the effort of a community of researchers and engineers in different groups around the world. It was only because of their joint work that SMOS finally became a reality. The fact that the European Space Agency, together with CNES (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales) and CDTI (Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnologico e Industrial), managed to get the project through should be considered a merit and a reward for that entire community. This paper is an invited historical review that, within a very limited number of pages, tries to provide insight into some of the developments which, one way or another, are imprinted in the name of SMOS.
Original language | English |
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Journal | Radio Science |
Volume | 49 |
Issue number | 6 |
Pages (from-to) | 415-449 |
Number of pages | 35 |
ISSN | 0048-6604 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2014 |
Keywords
- ASTRONOMY
- GEOCHEMISTRY
- METEOROLOGY
- REMOTE
- TELECOMMUNICATIONS
- SYNTHETIC-APERTURE RADIOMETER
- SURFACE SOIL-MOISTURE
- OCEAN SALINITY
- L-BAND
- SEMIARID AREAS
- SMOS
- EMISSION
- CALIBRATION
- SPACE
- ESTAR