The Soil Moisture Active and Passive (SMAP) mission is one of four Tier-1 missions recommended by the U.S. National Research Council Committee on Earth Science and Applications from Space.

SMAP launch is currently planned for 2014.

• SMAP succesfully completed its combined Mission Definition Review, System Requirements Review and Preliminary Non-Advocate Review (MDR/SRR/PNAR) in February 2009.

• The SMAP Science Definition Team (SDT) recently held an Algorithms and Cal/Val Workshop (June 2009), a SMAP Applications Workshop (September 2009), and helped coordinate a Canadian SMAP Science Workshop (October 2009).

• The SMAP project is now finalizing its Phase B plans. Phase B will have a strong emphasis on risk reduction, and on requirements and interface maturation.