MIRAS-SMOS antenna relative phase calibration

SMOS is the acronym of dasiaSoil Moisture and Ocean Salinitypsila and it refers to a European Space Agency (ESA) mission aimed at providing global maps of soil moisture over land and sea surface salinity over oceans. The mission has a single payload, the Microwave Imaging Radiometer with Aperture Synthesis (MIRAS), which is an L-band radiometer using an interferometric technique to synthesize high resolution beams. It is formed by 69 antennas evenly distributed on a Y-shaped mechanical structure. The instrument was manufactured by EADS-CASA Espacio (ES) and was delivered to ESA for testing in May 2007. The payload is now integrated with the platform and ready for launching in November 2008.