Berger, Michael ... et. al.-- 9 pages, 9 figuresThe Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission is ESA’s second Earth Explorer ‘opportunity mission’, scheduled for launch in early 2006. Selected for an extended feasibility (Phase-A) study in 1999, which was completed in December 2001, SMOS is currently in the design and development phase (Phase-B). SMOS will exploit an innovative instrument designed as a two-dimensional interferometer for acquiring brightness temperatures at L-band (1.4 GHz) to retrieve soil moisture and ocean salinity. Both are key variables used in weather, climate and extreme-event forecasting. As a secondary objective, data acquired by SMOS over ice/snow regions may be used to characterise the ice and snow layers an...