This month marks a milestone for ESA’s SMOS and Proba-2 satellites: launched on November 2nd 2009, they are celebrating their 10 years of operation in orbit. Still performing perfectly well, both spacecraft have not only exceeded their planned nominal lifetime in Space (SMOS: three years – Proba-2: two years) but have also surpassed their original scientific goals.

Proba-2 monitors the Sun, from solar eruptions over flares to Space weather effects. The small SMOS Earth Explorer is observing soil moisture over land and sea-surface salinity over the oceans to improve our understanding of our planet’s water cycle. Data from SMOS are also used for weather and climate modelling, water resource management and agriculture. Moreover, they help to forecast extreme events (e.g. flood, drought …).

A double success to which SPACEBEL has largely contributed with the development of the operational simulator of the SMOS satellite and the entire software package of the Proba-2 Sun-observatory, i.e. ground segment software (control centre & mission planning), on-board software & software validation facility.