The objective of the SMOS mission is to provide Soil Moisture (SM) and Ocean Salinity (OS) maps. Both SM and OS are key variables in climate monitoring, surface / vegetation / atmosphere transfers, and ocean / atmosphere cycles.

The SMOS spacecraft will consist in a platform, based on the CNES / ALCATEL PROTEUS generic platform adapted to the mission specificities and a payload, procured by ESA. The payload is an EADS / CASA L-Band (1.4 GHz) 2D passive interferometric radiometer with a Y-shaped 3 arms synthetic aperture antenna.

The SMOS Satellite Control Centre will be adapted by CNES from generic PROTEUS ground segment and installed in Toulouse within the CNES premises. A SMOS Mission Centre dedicated to level 1 and 2 products, is being developed and located in the ESA / Villafranca centre. A specific Data Processing Centre dedicated to level 3 and 4 products is being developed by CNES.