The NASA Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission formulation

Author

Entekhabi, Dara ; Njoku, Eni ; O´Neill, Peggy ; Kellogg, Kent ; Entin, Jared

Author_Institution

Massachusetts Inst. of Technol., Cambridge, MA, USA

fYear

2011

fDate

24-29 July 2011

Firstpage

2302

Lastpage

2305

Abstract

The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission is one of the first-tier projects recommended by the U.S. National Research Council Committee on Earth Science and Applications from Space. The SMAP mission is in formulation phase and it is scheduled for launch in 2014. The SMAP mission is designed to produce high-resolution and accurate global mapping of soil moisture and its freeze/thaw state using an instrument architecture that incorporates an L-band (1.26 GHz) radar and an L-band (1.41 GHz) radiometer. The simultaneous radar and radiometer measurements will be combined to derive global soil moisture mapping at 9 [km] resolution with a 2 to 3 days revisit and 0.04 [cm³ cm^-3] (1 sigma) soil water content accuracy. The radar measurements also allow the binary detection of surface freeze/thaw state. The project science goals address in water, energy and carbon cycle science as well as provide improved capabilities in natural hazards applications.

Keywords

hydrological techniques; ice; moisture; radiometry; remote sensing by radar; soil; spaceborne radar; AD 2014; L-band radar; L-band radiometer; NASA SMAP mission; Soil Moisture Active Passive mission; US National Research Council Committee on Earth Science and Applications from Space; carbon cycle; energy cycle; frequency 1.26 GHz; frequency 1.41 GHz; high resolution global soil moisture maps; natural hazards applications; simultaneous radar-radiometer measurements; soil moisture freeze state; soil moisture thaw state; water cycle; Extraterrestrial measurements; Instruments; Microwave radiometry; NASA; Radar; Soil measurements; Soil moisture; Decadal Survey; Freeze/Thaw; Microwave; Soil Moisture; Water Cycle;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), 2011 IEEE International

Conference_Location

Vancouver, BC

ISSN

2153-6996

Print_ISBN

978-1-4577-1003-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IGARSS.2011.6049669

Filename

6049669