The NASA Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission: Overview

Author

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

Author_Institution

Hydrol. Sci. Branch / Code 614.3, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA

fYear

2010

fDate

25-30 July 2010

Firstpage

3236

Lastpage

3239

Abstract

The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission is one of the first Earth observation satellites being developed by NASA in response to the National Research Council´s Decadal Survey. Its mission design consists of L-band radiometer and radar instruments sharing a rotating 6-m mesh reflector antenna to provide high-resolution and high-accuracy global maps of soil moisture and freeze/thaw state every 2-3 days. The combined active/passive microwave soil moisture product will have a spatial resolution of 10 km and a mean latency of 24 hours. In addition, the SMAP surface observations will be combined with advanced modeling and data assimilation to provide deeper root zone soil moisture and net ecosystem exchange of carbon. SMAP is expected to launch in the late 2014 - early 2015 time frame.

Keywords

data assimilation; hydrological techniques; hydrology; radiometry; remote sensing by radar; Earth observation satellites; L-band radiometer; NASA Soil Moisture Active Passive mission; SMAP surface observations; data assimilation; freeze state; microwave radiometry; radar instruments; thaw state; Carbon; Earth; Meteorology; NASA; Radar; Soil moisture; Spatial resolution; freeze/thaw; microwave radiometry; radar; soil moisture;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), 2010 IEEE International

Conference_Location

Honolulu, HI

ISSN

2153-6996

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-9565-8

Electronic_ISBN

2153-6996

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IGARSS.2010.5652291

Filename

5652291