ESA's Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission, launched 2-Nov-2009, has been in orbit for over 6 years, and its Microwave Imaging Radiometer with Aperture Synthesis (MIRAS) in two dimensions keeps working well. The calibration strategy remains overall as established after the commissioning phase, with a few improvements. The data for this whole period has been reprocessed with a new fully polarimetric version of the Level-1 processor which includes a refined calibration schema for the antenna losses. This reprocessing has allowed the assessment of an improved performance benchmark. An overview of the results and the progress achieved in both calibration and image reconstruction is presented in this contribution.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft
This paper looks at the question of the temporal and spatial stability of the Amazon rainforest as a distributed target calibration source. The Amazon rainforest has been established by a number of investigators as a useful means of determining the in-orbit
antenna pattern of spaceborne SAR and scatterometers. It was used for ERS-1 and ERS-2, J-ERS-1, and RADARSAT-1 providing a large isotropic backscattering reference over a wide range of incidence angle. In this paper, we look at a long series of results from ERS and RADARSAT to examine the temporal
and spatial stability of this target class. These properties are supported by a simple radar signature model. <p> In any radar measurement, uncompensated variation in the sensor may be included with changes in target backscatter. Results from independent measurements from
precision transponders are used to assess the size and characteristics of these inherent systematic variations before discussing the implications of the Amazon backscatter measurements. The implications of the results for future missions are also explored.
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