Title :
An architecture trade study for passive 10-km soil moisture measurements from low-Earth orbit
Author :
Pellerano, F.A. ; Neill, P.O. ; Dod, L.
Author_Institution :
Microwave Instrum. Technol. Branch, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA
Abstract :
In 1999 NASA HQ, as a result of an internal NASA study on potential Earth Science Enterprise Post-2002 Missions, directed the hydrology community to focus on achieving a 10-km spatial resolution global soil moisture mission. This type of resolution represents a significant technological challenge for an L-band radiometer in Sun-synchronous low-Earth orbit. An engineering trade study has been completed to determine alternative system configurations that could achieve the science requirements and to identify the most appropriate technology investments and development path for NASA to pursue in order to bring about such a mission. The results of the study are presented here together with a short discussion of future efforts
Keywords :
hydrological equipment; hydrological techniques; moisture measurement; radiometers; radiometry; remote sensing; soil; terrain mapping; L-band; Sun synchronous orbit; UHF; engineering trade study; equipment; geophysical measurement technique; hydrology; instrument; low Earth orbit; microwave radiometer; microwave radiometry; satellite remote sensing; soil moisture; spatial resolution; synthetic thinned aperture radiometer; system configuration; Appropriate technology; Geoscience; Hydrology; Investments; L-band; NASA; Radiometry; Soil moisture; Space technology; Spatial resolution;
Conference_Titel :
Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2001. IGARSS '01. IEEE 2001 International
Conference_Location :
Sydney, NSW
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-7031-7
DOI :
10.1109/IGARSS.2001.976873
