On 28 January 2015, NASA will launch the new Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), a remote sensing tool capable of measuring moisture of the Earth’s soils with unprecedented accuracy and resolution.
The latest remote sensing instrument features a radar, a radiometer and the largest rotating mesh antenna ever deployed in space.
SMAP includes both an active instrument, which emits its own signals and a passive instrument, which records already existing signals.
SMAP has been designed by the engineers of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, USA.
The project seeks to deliver high-resolution and extremely accurate measurements of soil moisture that can have large effects on weather and agriculture.
