Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) is an American environmental research satellite. Part of the first tier of missions recommended for NASA by the Earth Science Decadal Survey, it is scheduled for launch in 2014. It is one of the first Earth observation satellites being developed by NASA in response to the National Research Council’s Decadal Survey. It has been selected for launch in November 2014.
Read more about Soil Moisture Active Passive: Mission Overview, Measurement Concept, System Characteristics, Program Description, Science and Applications
Famous quotes containing the words soil, active and/or passive:
“This fair homestead has fallen to us, and how little have we done to improve it, how little have we cleared and hedged and ditched! We are too inclined to go hence to a “better land,” without lifting a finger, as our farmers are moving to the Ohio soil; but would it not be more heroic and faithful to till and redeem this New England soil of the world?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If church prelates, past or present, had even an inkling of physiology they’d realise that what they term this inner ugliness creates and nourishes the hearing ear, the seeing eye, the active mind, and energetic body of man and woman, in the same way that dirt and dung at the roots give the plant its delicate leaves and the full-blown rose.”
—Sean O’Casey (1884–1964)
“She has taken her passive pigeon poor,
She has buried him down and down.
He never shall sally to Sally
Nor soil any roofs of the town.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)