CubeSat to Demonstrate Innovative Method for Mapping Soil Moisture and Snow from Space

Monday, December 23, 2019 - 11:00 in Astronomy & Space

This blog post originated in the 2018 Science Mission Directorate Science and Technology Report. PROJECT Signals of Opportunity Airborne Demonstrator (SoOp-AD) and SigNals of Opportunity: P-band Investigation (SNoOPI) KEY POINTS The SoOP-AD project successfully demonstrated, from aircraft, a new instrument prototype for remote sensing of soil moisture. The SNoOPI project will continue this development by demonstrating this technology from space on a CubeSat platform. Success with SNoOPI will show that this technique is viable in space and would be available for use on future satellite missions. Artist’s rendition of the SigNals of Opportunity: P-band Investigation (SNoOPI). Space-based methods to measure soil moisture on Earth typically entail either sensing the extremely weak emission of microwaves from water in the soil using an instrument call a radiometer or using a radar, which transmits a signal toward Earth, and then receives the signal after it reflects from the soil. Using current technology, neither approach can sense changes in the soil...

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