PARIS: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is ready for its next satellite launch on Thursday, an effort which will place a new agricultural probe into orbit.
On January 25th, the Soil Moisture Active Passive satellite will blast off atop a Delta 2 rocket on its new three-year mission to measure soil moisture from its orbital vantage point. SMAP, which cost $916 million to develop, will provide highly detailed and accurate moisture readings every three days – a mission that may sound bland but is actually much more interesting that most would think according to SMAP deputy project manager Sam Thurman. Dara Entekhabi, science definition team leader for the project, echoed Thurman’s words by calling soil moisture “the bank account of water” on Earth.
SMAP will just be one mission of 18 others that are aimed towards a study of how the Earth works. Between ground and air observations and its on-orbit satellites, NASA will be able to keep a close watch on Earth’s vital signs and keep track of things such as fresh water resources, sea level fluctuations, and climate change to name but a few according to SNAP program executive Christine Bonniksen.
SMAP will use its suite of sensors to determine global soil moisture content up to two inches deep, making determinations as to whether it’s in frozen or liquid form. Thurman says that the project has the ability to accomplish these measurements with an accuracy that is something like 10 times better than today’s ground-based measurements.
SMAP lifts off at 6:20 AM local time from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on the back of the United Launch Alliance rocket. This will be the 153rd launch of the Delta 2. Once SMAP reaches its new home in orbit, it will begin collecting information and sending back the equivalent of 130 terabytes of data on a daily basis. Thurman said that the equivalent amount of data would be to stream around 50 Netflix movies every 24 hours over the course of three years straight without stopping. At that point you’d probably be sick of movies – and you would have probably exhausted the Netflix library several times over.
