NASA Satellite Help Farmers Fighting Draught

NASA scientists, including one of Indian-origin, have developed a new satellite than can predict the severity of droughts worldwide and help farmers maximise crop yield.

Currently, there is no ground-or satellite-based global network monitoring soil moisture at a local level.

Farmers, scientists and resource managers can place sensors in the ground, but these only provide spot measurements and are rare across some critical agricultural areas in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite mission, scheduled to launch later, will collect the kind of local data agricultural and water managers worldwide need.

SMAP uses two microwave instruments to monitor the top 5 centimetres of soil on Earth’s surface.

Together, the instruments create soil moisture estimates with a resolution of about 9 kilometres mapping the entire globe every two or three days.

Although this resolution cannot show how soil moisture might vary within a single field, it will give the most detailed maps yet made.

“Agricultural drought occurs when the demand for water for crop production exceeds available water supplies from precipitation, surface water and sustainable withdrawals from groundwater,” said Forrest Melton, a research scientist in the Ecological Forecasting Lab at NASA Ames Research Centre in Moffett Field, California.

“Based on snowpack and precipitation data in California, by March we had a pretty good idea that by summer we’d be in a severe agricultural drought,” Melton added.

“But irrigation in parts of India, the Middle East and other regions relies heavily on the pumping of groundwater during some or all of the year,” Melton said.

Underground water resources are hard to estimate, so farmers who rely on groundwater have fewer indicators of approaching shortfalls than those whose irrigation comes partially from rain or snowmelt.

For these parts of the world where farmers have little data available to help them understand current conditions, SMAP’s measurements could fill a significant void.

Some farmers handle drought by changing irrigation patterns. Others delay planting or harvesting to give plants their best shot at success.

Currently, schedule modifications are based mostly on growers’ observations and experience. SMAP’s data will provide an objective assessment of soil moisture to help with their management strategy.

“If farmers of rain-fed crops know soil moisture, they can schedule their planting to maximise crop yield,” said Narendra Das, a water and carbon cycle scientist on SMAP’s science team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

“SMAP can assist in predicting how dramatic drought will be, and then its data can help farmers plan their recovery from drought,” said Das.

Recall: India's moon mission

Chandrayaan



India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) C-11 blasts off carrying India's first unmanned Moon mission Chandrayaan-1 from the Satish Dhawan Space centre at Sriharikota, about 100 km (62 miles) north of the southern Indian city of Chennai on October 22, 2008.

The Indian Space Research Organisation said that Chandrayaan-1, the country's first-ever Moon probe, entered its lunar transfer trajectory after a fifth and final orbit-raising maneuver carried out in early November.

During the maneuver, the spacecraft's rocket engine fired for about 150 seconds, raising its apogee to about 236,121 miles (380,000 km) - the Moon's average distance from Earth.

The 3,042-pound (1,380-kg) Chandrayaan-1 beamed back the first images from the Terrain Mapping Camera used to map the lunar surface, in the first week of November itself.



The PSLV-C11 (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle), Chandrayaan-1 sits on the second launch pad of Satish Dhawan space centre at Sriharikota, about 100 km (62 miles) north of the southern Indian city of Chennai, October 11, 2008.
Among its recent moon findings, an instrument on-board Chandrayaan-1 confirmed how the earth's lonely satellite generates water that mankind hopes to harvest in future. The Moon acts as a big sponge that absorbs electrically charged particles spewed out by the sun, a report said. The water on the Moon is present in molecular form and not seen as liquid water, ice or moisture.



The PSLV-C11 (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle), Chandrayaan-1 sits on the second launch pad of Satish Dhawan space centre at Sriharikota.
The mission was a major boost to India's space program, as India researched and developed its own technology in order to explore the Moon.The vehicle was successfully inserted into lunar orbit on 8 November 2008.
On 14 November 2008, the Moon Impact Probe separated from the Chandrayaan orbiter at and struck the south pole in a controlled manner, making India the fourth country to place its flag on the Moon.
The estimated cost for the project was Rs. 386 crore (US$ 80 million).



India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) C-11 is seen taking off carrying India's Chandrayaan-1. India has also completed the design of Chandrayaan-2, its next mission to the Moon - this time in collaboration with Russia - that would have a lander and rover which can collect samples of the lunar soil and analyse them and send back the data."Right now, the design has been completed. We had a joint review with Russian scientists here," Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation, G Madhavan Nair, told PTI recently. The target location for the lander-rover would be identified using data from instruments of Chandrayaan-1, India's own and first unmanned mission to the Moon launched on October 22 2009. The launch of Chandrayaan-2, slated towards the end of 2012.



Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) G. Madhavan Nair, holds a miniature of India's first unmanned moon mission 'Chandrayaan-1' after its launch at Sriharikota.
In August 2009, India decided to terminate its moon mission as contact could not be established with Chandrayaan.
"We are disappointed with what has happened, but we have managed to salvage a large volume of data," Nair told reporters.
"We are content with the result," he said, adding that nearly 95 percent of the mission's objectives have been completed.
Chandrayaan captured nearly 70,000 images of the Moon. ISRO also conducted joint experiments with National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientists.




The PSLV-C11 (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle), Chandrayaan-1 sits on the second launch pad of Satish Dhawan space centre at Sriharikota. On the failure of India's Moon mission, Nair said a high-level committee was appointed to probe the loss of signal, adding that the exact details about the reasons which led to Chandrayaan's failure could not be figured out in the absence of telemetry signals, which provide crucial indicators. The computers on board the craft could have malfunctioned, triggering off the communication failure, the ISRO chief said.



This image of the Earth was taken by ISRO's Chandrayaan-1 mission while on its way to the Moon on 29 October 2008, at 08:00 CET (12:30 Indian local time). The image was obtained by the Terrain Mapping camera (TMC), one of the 11 instruments on board, and shows the Southern coast of Australia depicted from a height of 70, 000 km.



This handout picture provided by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) shows the surface of the Moon taken by Moon Impact Probe (MIP), after separating from India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, November 14, 2008.
As the findings revealed later, the lunar surface is a loose collection of irregular dust grains, known as regolith.



This handout picture provided by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) shows the surface of the Moon taken by Moon Impact Probe (MIP), after separating from India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, November 14, 2008. As the moon is bombarded by cosmic particles, the incoming particles are trapped in the spaces between the grains and absorbed. When this happens to solar protons - positively charged particles thrown out by the sun - they interact with the oxygen in the lunar regolith to produce water.



In this Sept. 18, 2008, file photo, India's first unmanned mission to the Moon, Chandrayaan 1 spacecraft is seen as it is unveiled at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Satellite Centre in Bangalore, India. According to the then director of ISRO S Satish, the prime objective of the lunar mission was to expand scientific knowledge about the moon, to upgrade India's technological capability and to provide opportunities for planetary research to Indian scientists.



Indian Overseas Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi, right, presents a trophy to Indian Space Research Organization Chairman G. Madhavan Nair.
India plans a manned space mission by 2015, using indigenous systems and technology."We are trying to develop the technologies which are required for sending a man to space... If everything goes all right we will be able to have a manned mission wherein an astronaut will be orbiting the earth within eight years," Nair is reported to have told the media.