Artist's impression of SMOS in orbit

The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission will provide global maps of soil moisture and ocean salinity. Soil moisture data are urgently required for hydrological studies, and data on ocean salinity are vital for improving our understanding of ocean circulation patterns. The SMOS mission will demonstrate a completely new type of instrument - a radiometer that operates between 1400 and 1427 MHz (L-band).