The SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) Earth observation satellite has been shipped to the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia where he will start its launch campaign for a Rockot launch scheduled on November 2nd. SMOS left the Thales Alenia Space plant in Cannes on September 16th.

SMOS is a joint mission conducted by the European Space Agency (ESA), which is coordinating the mission in partnership with French space agency CNES and CDTI (Center for the Development of Industrial Technology) of Spain. Thales Alenia Space, the main industrial partner for this program, has provided the PROTEUS multi-mission module (developed in cooperation with CNES) and was in charge of the overall satellite integration and qualification tests. The instrument, a L-band radiometer-interferometer, comprises an antenna with three 4-meter deployable arms fitted with 69 passive receivers; it was developed under Spanish responsibility and built by EADS CASA. SMOS is the first satellite dedicated to soil moisture and ocean salinity study. Its main mission is to provide global maps of high sensitivity and resolution with a large spatial and temporal coverage. These global data (moisture and salinity) will extend our knowledge of the water cycle and improve hydrological and meteorological models, especially for climate variation and extreme events forecasting. In addition, observations over regions of ice and snow will contribute to studies of the cryosphere. SMOS is the fifth satellite based on the PROTEUS multimission platform (following JASON 1 and 2, CALIPSO and COROT) and the fourth in this series dedicated to Earth observation and climate change studies.