INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW SMAP-REFLECTOMETRY (SMAP-R) DATASET: STATUS AND SCIENCE CAPABILITIES

Short after its launch, the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission started using its radar receiver to collect Global Positioning System (GPS) bistatic radar measurements by switching the band-pass center frequency of its radar receiver to the GPS L2C band. We refer to this functionality of the SMAP mission as SMAP-Reflectometry or SMAP-R. The collected SMAP-R dataset represents the first polarimetric Global Navigation Satellite System Reflectometry (GNSS-R) dataset from space and brings unique capabilities as compared to other co-existing GNSS- R missions, i.e., CYclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS). This paper formally introduces the SMAP-R dataset in its more current status and provides a wide overview of its science capabilities.