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Title: FOSTERING APPLICATIONS OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE NASA SOIL MOISTURE ACTIVE PASSIVE (SMAP) MISSION

Author
item Moran, Mary
item O'NEILL, P. - National Aeronautics And Space Administration (NASA)
item ENTEKHABI, D. - National Aeronautics And Space Administration (NASA)
item NJOKU, E. - National Aeronautics And Space Administration (NASA)
item KELLOGG, K. - National Aeronautics And Space Administration (NASA)

Submitted to: International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/23/2010
Publication Date: 7/25/2010
Citation: Moran, M.S., O'Neill, P., Entekhabi, D., Njoku, E., Kellogg, K. 2010. Fostering appications opportunities for the NASA Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP)Mission. Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, July 25, 2010, Honolulu, HI. pp. 2571-2574.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical 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 (NRC’s) Decadal Survey, Earth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond. SMAP will make global measurements of the soil moisture present at the Earth's land surface and will distinguish frozen from thawed land surfaces. Direct observations of soil moisture and freeze/thaw state from space will allow significantly improved estimates of water, energy and carbon transfers between the land and atmosphere. In this paper we outline how applications and applied science were developed for SMAP and how the science drivers and priority applications contributed to the overall mission measurement requirements. The requirements are diverse and convergence on a common set of values entailed some challenges. Nevertheless the way forward was found and the challenge for the mission now is how to foster and engage the applications community. The project has formed a SMAP Applications Working Group which now has over 150 members (see http://smap.jpl.nasa.gov/science/applicWG). This paper concludes with a plan for fostering applications through engagement with the applications community.