Yes, 6 months already since SMOS was launched from Plesetzk. Time flies!The last 3 days we had a good set of meetings in Avila (with a superb organization – master minded by Guillermo – in a magnificent town ) to establish the status at the end of commissioning.During the key point 3 we had an extensive summary of activities followed by the end of commisioning meeting and the a board meeting to finalise the options. and lay the path for the future.In a nut shell (more detailed minutes and reports will be issued soon by the Project in preparation of the official hand over) we can say that SMOS is meeting practically all the science requirements as expressed in the original proposal of 1998 and indicated in the system requirement document with “flying colours”.SMOS will now switch to the normal operation mode with the option of working in the full polarisation mode.Early June, the L1C data will soon be reprocessed and made available to all while the level 2 will be made available to the Cal val users. More details and information will be announced in Bergen.I must say that if we are now were we are it is thanks to the work and efforts of many people, all dedicated to making SMOS a success. The commissioning phase for instance saw lots of activity from the operation teams, the L1 and L2 teams.I wish thus to thank all project teams, Industries and science team including the ones who were with me at the very beginning for making SMOS so real and so good!
