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:
“Men nowhere, east or west, live yet a natural life, round which the vine clings, and which the elm willingly shadows. Man would desecrate it by his touch, and so the beauty of the world remains veiled to him. He needs not only to be spiritualized, but naturalized, on the soil of earth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I am grown old and my memory is not as active as it used to be. When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now, and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this, but we all have to do it.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“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)