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ESA Bulletin Is an ESA a Foreword Communications Production www.esa.int number 137 | February 2009 bulletin → space for europe ESA Member States Austria Belgium Czech Republic Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Ireland Italy Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Portugal Spain Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom E uropean Space Agency | Bulletin 137 | February 2009 Agencyuropean Space | Bulletin 137 | February An ESA Communications Production Copyright 2009 © European Space Agency European Space Agency The European Space Agency was formed out of, and took over the rights and The ESA headquarters are in Paris. obligations of, the two earlier European space organisations – the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) and the European Launcher Development The major establishments of ESA are: Organisation (ELDO). The Member States are Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the ESTEC, Noordwijk, Netherlands. Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Canada is a Cooperating State. ESOC, Darmstadt, Germany. In the words of its Convention: the purpose of the Agency shall be to provide for ESRIN, Frascati, Italy. and to promote, for exclusively peaceful purposes, cooperation among European States in space research and technology and their space applications, with a view ESAC, Madrid, Spain. to their being used for scientific purposes and for operational space applications systems: Chairman of the Council: M. Lucena → by elaborating and implementing a long-term European space policy, by Director General: J.-J. Dordain recommending space objectives to the Member States, and by concerting the policies of the Member States with respect to other national and international organisations and institutions; → by elaborating and implementing activities and programmes in the space field; → by coordinating the European space programme and national programmes, and by integrating the latter progressively and as completely as possible into the European space programme, in particular as regards the development of applications satellites; → by elaborating and implementing the industrial policy appropriate to its programme and by recommending a coherent industrial policy to the Member States. The Agency is directed by a Council composed of representatives of the Member States. The Director General is the chief executive of the Agency and its legal representative. ← On cover: Is climate change accelerating the water cycle? Due to be launched this year, ESA’s SMOS satellite will observe soil moisture over Earth’s landmasses and salinity of the ocean surface. These data are vital for hydrological studies and for improving our understanding of ocean circulation patterns. → contents 32 number 137 | February 2009 06 40 THE PROGRAMMATIC AND TECHNICAL CHALLENGES OF SMOS The ESA Bulletin is an ESA A foreword Communications production. Volker Liebig → 02 Published by: EXPLORING THE WATER CYCLE OF THE BLUE PLANET ESA Communication & Knowledge The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission Department Mark Drinkwater et al → 06 Communication Production Office STAR IN THE SKY ESTEC, PO Box 299 2200 AG Noordwijk The SMOS payload: MIRAS The Netherlands Manuel Martín-Neira et al → 16 Tel: +31 71 565 3408 GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS Email: [email protected] SMOS operations and products Susanne Mecklenburg et al → 24 Editor Carl Walker LEAP AHEAD IN SPACE COMMUNICATIONS Designer Quantum technologies for space systems Roberta Sandri Josep Perdigues-Armengol et al → 32 Organisation A TOUCHSTONE FOR SUCCESS www.esa.int/credits Core technology activity for future launchers Guy Ramusat → 40 The ESA Bulletin is published by the European Space Agency. Individual ESA’S ‘BILLION-PIXEL’ CAMERA articles may be reprinted provided the credit line reads ‘Reprinted from The challenges of the Gaia mission → ESA Bulletin’, plus date of issue. Giuseppe Sarri et al 50 Reprinted signed articles must bear the authors’ names. Advertisements ESA’S ROOM WITH A VIEW are accepted in good faith; ESA Node-3 and Cupola ready for launch accepts no responsibility for their Philippe Deloo & Sara Pastor → 60 content claims. THE FIRST EUROPEAN ASTEROID ‘FLYBY’ Images copyright ESA unless stated otherwise. Permission to reproduce Rosetta operations for the flyby of asteroid 2867 Steins or distribute material identified as Sylvain Lodiot et al → 68 copyright of a third party must be obtained from the copyright owner concerned. news - in brief → 76 Copyright © 2009 European Space Agency programmes in progress → 86 ISSN 0376-4265 | e-ISSN 1608-4713 publications → 114 → THE PROGRAMMatIC aND TECHNICal CHalleNGes OF SMOS A foreword by Volker Liebig With the imminent launch of the Soil Moisture vegetation, fluxes at the interface and the effect of these on and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission, ESA continues water run-off. earth observation its line of Earth Explorers in its Earth Observation This knowledge is important to improve meteorological Envelope Programme. For the first time we will and hydrological modelling and forecasting, water resource receive global information from space about soil management and monitoring of plant growth, and moisture over land and sea-surface salinity over the contributes to the forecasting of hazardous events such as floods. oceans. Ocean salinity is a key variable in characterising global ocean ESA’s fleet of Earth Explorers are research missions focusing circulation and its seasonal and interannual variability, on the different characteristics of our planet. They will and thus is an important constraint in ocean-atmosphere make global observations from space to advance our models. SMOS observations will therefore improve seasonal- understanding of the interactions within the Earth system to-interannual climate predictions (e.g. for the El Niño and investigate the impact of human activities on our Southern Oscillation), and the estimates of ocean rainfall environment. and thus the global hydrologic budgets. The SMOS mission will provide data on two key variables They will also aid the monitoring of large-scale salinity in the hydrological (water) cycle: soil moisture and ocean events and improve monitoring of sea-surface salinity salinity. Both are important in climate research to improve variability. The latter is needed to better understand and climate change predictions. characterise the distribution of bio-geochemical parameters in the ocean’s surface and upper layers. SMOS observations of soil moisture will further our knowledge about processes in the water and energy fluxes at the land surface/atmosphere interface and will Providing such data from space represents a real technical provide information on storage of water, water uptake by feat. The instrument on SMOS, the Microwave Imaging Radiometer using Aperture Synthesis (MIRAS), operates in the microwave ‘L band’ frequency range at 1.4 GHz, ↓ and measures brightness temperatures as a function of polarisation and angle. It applies the technique of The technology ‘pathfinder’: the Very Large Array in New interferometry to provide a spatial resolution suitable for the Mexico as used by radio astronomers for . This telescope array consists of 27 25-metre diameter dish antennas that together comprise a single radio telescope system (NRAO) 4 www.esa.int global measurements we want to make. SMOS is the first supporting ground segment throughout its mission mission to apply such a technique in space. lifetime, while ESA will maintain the overall management SMOS foreword SMOS responsibility for the mission and its operations. → To make this concept work, the MIRAS instrument has to While SMOS is readied for launch on a Rockot launcher from overcome a number of technical challenges: in particular, the Plesetsk cosmodrome in Russia, the ‘finishing touches’ the 69 individual receivers that form the elements of the are being made to the data-processing ground segment at interferometric array have to be as ‘identical’ as possible in ESAC, Spain. Tuning of the processors at level 1 (brightness their amplitude over frequency response. For all receivers, temperature) and level 2 (soil moisture and ocean salinity, the sampling time has to be the same within 0.5 ns, which respectively) will continue, in order to have the best possible implies the first-ever use in space of a distributed fibre versions of the processors installed for the commissioning optical harness. Not only that, but the three arms that phase. accommodate the rows of receivers each span more than 4 metres. They can only be carried on the satellite if folded Also, a large number of scientific groups are preparing for during launch and deployed once arriving in orbit. the calibration and validation of the eagerly awaited data from SMOS. This comprises a variety of measurement Just as challenging as the technology has been the efforts over land and sea, such as field campaigns to programmatic setup of SMOS. With the Envelope deploy soil moisture probes and radiometers such as Programme allowing explicit interagency cooperation, ELBARA, buoys with salinity sensors, or airborne campaigns SMOS has been conceived from the outset as a cooperation carrying instruments such as EMIRAD, which will provide between ESA, the French space agency CNES and the measurements similar to the ones expected from MIRAS. Spanish space agency CDTI. The contribution of CDTI included funding for the payload ground segment, and also for the space segment through ESA’s General Support ↓ Technology Programme. The CNES cooperation comprised the provision
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