BBC‘s Jonathan Amos has an enterprising story on a satellite of which I had not remembered ever hearing. It is SMOS. That stands for Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission. It launched November 2. Now, after shakedown and other commissioning tasks, it is entering its main tasks. Via detailed global mapping of where the land is wet, where it is dry, and where it is changing from one to the other and where the oceans are responding to freshwater inputs, it is supposed to provide a better grasp of extreme weather events and similar meteorological concerns.

His hook is a good one. The satellite depends on a novel microwave instrument. And the frequency it uses is supposed to be off limits, by international regulation, for other users such as commercial or gov’t radio operators. Nonetheless, operators of the satellite are having to dig the signals they want out of all sorts of noise from transmitters overlapping their key frequency. The result is a story of conflict between the satellite mission plus agencies that are supposed to have cleared the air for it, and the people who are using that wavelength domain anyway. And that conflict gives an urgency to Amos’s insertion of plenty of info on what the satellite has done so far and why it should be permitted to do more.

Amos filed from Vienna, site of a meeting that provided updates on the satellite and its condition. Perhaps other reporters got this story, but I haven’t seen any sign of that. Looks like a good, informative exclusive.

Grist for the Mill: European Space Agency SMOS site.

- Charlie Petit

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