NASA Mission managers determined that one of the science instruments on the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite is no longer capable of returning data.
The SMAP mission was launched in an effort to map soil moisture around the world and assess if soils are thawed or frozen. Though the satellite is no longer able to use its radar, the mission will continue, producing high-quality science measurements through the radiometer instrument. Data from the mission is geared towards aiding scientists understand the relationship between carbon, energy and water cycles, enhancing monitoring and predicting capabilities for droughts, floods and other natural hazards, and forecasting crop yields and weather conditions.
"Although some of the planned applications of SMAP data will be impacted by the loss of the radar, the mission will continue to produce valuable science for important Earth system studies," said Dara Entekhabi, science team lead for SMAP.
SMAP's radar ceased transmitting on July 7 because of an anomaly in the high power amplifier, which is tasked with boosting the radar pulse's power level to ensure scattered energy from the surface of the earth could be measured accurately. A team was then formed to assess the anomaly and determine whether or not it can be resolved. After a series of tests, the team tried to power up the radar but failed, exhausting all possible options for recovering normal operations.
Still, project scientists have discovered that certain science measurements from the radiometer will be useful, identified through available mission data. Over the next months, SMAP and NASA will be determining how these measurements will figure into the mission's data products.
With the conclusion that the radar's function can no longer be recovered, NASA created another team to carry out a comprehensive review of the events that led to the radar breaking down. Not only will this determine what caused the problem but it will also prevent the anomaly from recurring in the future. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory will also be convening a separate review board to work alongside NASA's team.
The SMAP satellite was launched on Jan. 31, with the mission officially beginning in April. It released its first mapping of the world's soil moisture last Apr. 21. Over four months of data have been collected by the mission, nearly three months of which had the radar operational. SMAP scientists are planning to publish beta-quality soil moisture data products by the end of September. Validated data will follow in April 2016.
