ESA - SMOS - Archive

ESA title

The mission

ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission is dedicated to making global observations of soil moisture over land and salinity over oceans. By consistently mapping these two important components in the water cycle, SMOS is advancing our understanding of the exchange processes between Earth’s surface and atmosphere and is helping to improve weather and climate models.

The launch

Date: 2 November 2009
Site: Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russia
Launcher: Rockot

758 km mean altitude
69 antenna receivers
10+ years in orbit

SMOS

Global map of vegetation optical depth, 2018

SMOS adds long-term view on carbon stored in forests

01/08/2025 2855 views 53 likes

European forests

A troubling shift in Europe’s forest carbon balance

30/07/2025 2100 views 9 likes

Southern Ocean sea ice

Antarctic waters getting saltier as sea ice wanes

04/07/2025 4669 views 52 likes

Full Earth disc from the Meteosat Third Generation Imager

10 ways Earth is interconnected

22/04/2024 4634 views 17 likes

Solar flare captured by ESA’s Proba-2 SWAP

SMOS and Swarm team up to spot huge solar storm

26/03/2024 22761 views 24 likes

Global ocean acidification stripes

Satellites increasingly critical to monitor ocean health

22/02/2024 3384 views 29 likes

Tropical forest around the Capim River, Brazil

Younger trees champion carbon capture

05/10/2023 11353 views 110 likes

Donnie Creek fire

Forecasting fires with SMOS

14/06/2023 4199 views 66 likes

Irrigation Ebro River basin

How much water do we use for irrigation?

19/04/2023 5757 views 71 likes

10 remarkable Earth facts

18/04/2023 582972 views 2761 likes

Loire River

Is Europe already drying up?

31/03/2023 7157 views 118 likes

Above ground biomass in the Amazon basin

Forest degradation primary driver of carbon loss in the Bra…

10/06/2021 6971 views 98 likes

CryoSat key to measuring sea-ice thickness

Arctic sea ice succumbs to Atlantification

21/05/2021 9835 views 133 likes

SMOS turns to the Sun

Water mission takes on space weather

24/03/2021 4095 views 108 likes

Industrial emissions of carbon dioxide fuel our warming climate

Providing the facts to help Europe achieve 55%

16/09/2020 3782 views 48 likes

Soil moisture conditions from 10 April to 10 May 2020

Czech Republic drought visible from space

18/05/2020 8897 views 94 likes

Global sea-surface salinity 2012 and 2017

New maps of salinity reveal the impact of climate variabili…

30/11/2019 11267 views 79 likes

SMOS in orbit

Space is key to monitoring ocean acidification

28/11/2019 5826 views 48 likes

Antarctica

Revealing interior temperature of Antarctic ice sheet

04/11/2019 10269 views 82 likes

Floods northeast of Tokyo captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1

Tracking Typhoon Hagibis from space

29/10/2019 7135 views 66 likes

Sea roughness key to carbon flux

Can oceans turn the tide on the climate crisis?

08/10/2019 11765 views 217 likes

Polarstern

A year trapped in Arctic ice for climate science

24/09/2019 6522 views 121 likes

SMOS joins forces with top weather forecasting system

12/06/2019 3904 views 56 likes

Global sea-surface salinity

Mapping salty waters

14/05/2019 31300 views 100 likes

New potential for tracking severe storms

14/05/2019 3739 views 64 likes

Cloud-free Europe

New observations for the new economy

08/03/2019 10661 views 89 likes

Typhoon Mangkhut

SMOS offers new perspective on hurricanes

25/09/2018 3154 views 46 likes

Watering crops

How much water is used for irrigation?

11/09/2018 9111 views 52 likes

Safeguarding our most precious resource: water

22/03/2018 7505 views 101 likes

Nearly four decades of soil moisture data now available

03/11/2017 33376 views 95 likes

Receded shoreline

Italy’s drought seen from space

05/09/2017 15552 views 129 likes

Farming efficiency

Taking farming into the space age

01/08/2017 6794 views 95 likes

Desert locust outbreak

Satellites forewarn of locust plagues

13/06/2017 11937 views 112 likes

Alboran Sea salinity change

SMOS brings Mediterranean salinity into focus

11/05/2017 4958 views 55 likes

Ice thickness from CryoSat and SMOS

Satellite cousins have ice covered

16/12/2016 4303 views 63 likes

Soil moisture processed two ways

SMOS on speed

14/10/2016 3769 views 55 likes

Salinity at the equator

SMOS tracks Pacific fresh water pools

27/07/2016 4255 views 57 likes

Fort McMurray wildfires

Canadian fires tracked by satellites

19/05/2016 20857 views 60 likes

Elbara in Tibet

SMOS gets help from Tibet

29/01/2016 3958 views 53 likes

SMOS meets ocean monsters

30/09/2015 8387 views 73 likes

SMOS

SMOS sings the song of ice and fire

02/07/2015 4215 views 44 likes

SMOS

Call for Media: New applications for ESA’s SMOS mission

18/05/2015 1742 views 19 likes

Ocean alkalinity

SMOS on acid

17/02/2015 10778 views 106 likes

Salinity matters

18/12/2014 11255 views 59 likes

Five years of soil moisture, ocean salinity and beyond

03/11/2014 9213 views 57 likes

Thin sea ice

Versatility extends life of water mission

18/07/2014 2792 views 43 likes

Crop yield

Water mission boosts food security

21/05/2014 4927 views 52 likes

What lies beneath?

09/01/2014 5985 views 58 likes

Triple storm

SMOS sees triple superstorms

22/10/2013 6873 views 52 likes

Soil moisture analysis

Water mission versatility

12/09/2013 2454 views 26 likes

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