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:
“The same soil is good for men and for trees. A man’s health requires as many acres of meadow to his prospect as his farm does loads of muck.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The sense of an entailed disadvantage—the deformed foot doubtfully hidden by the shoe, makes a restlessly active spiritual yeast, and easily turns a self-centred, unloving nature into an Ishmaelite. But in the rarer sort, who presently see their own frustrated claim as one among a myriad, the inexorable sorrow takes the form of fellowship and makes the imagination tender.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“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)