Lessons Learnt from SMOS RFI Activities After 10 Years in Orbit: RFI Detection and Reporting to Claim Protection and Increase Awareness of the Interference Problem in the 1400–1427 MHZ Passive Band

The European Space Agency's Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission is perturbed by Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) that jeopardizes part of its scientific retrieval in certain areas of the world. Areas affected by RFI experience data loss or underestimation of soil moisture and ocean salinity retrieval values. Close to the 10th anniversary of SMOS launch, this paper provides an overview of SMOS RFI activities during these years, the evolution of the RFI scenario worldwide and the lessons learned. The main challenges faced in the RFI detection and geo-location will be introduced, with some interesting examples of RFI cases detected. Another topic addressed in this paper is the impact of the RFI contamination from a scientific perspective, with some estimations of the data percentage that has to be discarded due to interference.