An overview of the SMOS mission

In this video, Klaus Scipal - Biomass and SMOS Mission Manager - talks about ESA's Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission, describing:

• ESA's Earth Explorers
• His role as Mission Manager, which involves coordinating the teams that operate the mission and scientists who use the data
• Who are main users of data from SMOS
• The unique data record that SMOS has acquired during 14 years
• The challenges and rewards of the mission

He also describes his excitement at discovering diverse applications for the data, which over the past decade and a half has involved measuring wind speeds that help predict hurricanes, how soil moisture changes weather or droughts and floods, sea ice thickness measurement, and how it has come to support Numerical Weather Prediction. Most recently, the satellite has even been used to support space weather applications.