An intriguing, yet highly un-informative, article on SpaceDaily hints that the Russians will be launching a new oceanography satellite that apparently uses radio frequencies (I'm guessing that means microwave*) to "provide data on ... oceanic temperature and salinity, as well as moisture levels and temperature on land"
The thing is, the Europeans have already launched SMOS** , which does that, and the Americans are going to soon launch (June 9 of this year) Aquarius -- which does that too.
So what does the Russian satellite do differently (if it does) than SMOS and Aquarius? Like the title says -- tell me more. There is apparently nothing else out on the English-speaking Web about this. I guess if I did find anything it would be in Cyrillic and that would not do me much good.
* Rereading the article, quote, "The satellite will use a frequency of 21 centimeters, which ensures the complete "transparency" of the earth's atmosphere ... " LET ME JUST POINT OUT that 21 centimeters is the measure of a wavelength, not a frequency (that would be in Hz), but yes, it is in the microwave range.
** TERRIFIC animation at this Web site, by the way.
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