SMAP data management is governed by NASA's Earth Science Data Policy (adopted in 1991). NASA has developed policy implementation, practices, and nomenclature that Earth science missions use to comply with policy tenets.

NASA Earth Science Data Policy - Link to NASA web page providing details of NASA's Earth science data policy
Data Level Definitions - Description of SMAP science data processing levels (correspond generally to NASA EOSDIS definitions)
Data Maturity Levels - Link to NASA web page describing maturity and validation nomenclature for data products

SMAP Data Products
The SMAP baseline science data products are shown in the table below. These data products will be generated within the project's Science Data System and made available publicly through a NASA-designated data center. The products will conform to the HDF-5 standard.

SMAP synthetic aperture radar measurements have a spatial resolution of 1-3 km over the outer 70% of the swath. The radiometer measurements have a spatial resolution of 40 km.

The high resolution of the radar is critical for accurate determination of freeze/thaw state (L3_F/T_A) in the heterogeneous landscapes of the boreal forest region north of 45N latitude. The 40-km soil moisture product (L2_SM_P) is derived from the radiometer measurements. The radar and radiometer measurements are combined to generate an intermediate resolution 9-km product (L2_SM_A/P) that optimizes the resolution and accuracy attributes of the radar and radiometer.

Data Availability

The SMAP mission will make science data products available to the public through a NASA-designated Earth science data center. SMAP will coordinate the release of data product versions with the data center and will ensure the completeness and accuracy of quality control information and validation status of the data products. There will be a calibration and validation (Cal/Val) phase during the science mission that will follow the 90-day post launch initial orbit checkout (IOC) phase. The duration of the Cal/Val phase is 6 months for Level 1 products and 12 months for Level 2 through Level 4 products.

The initial release of Level 1 and Level 2 products will take place 3 months after IOC. Level 3 and 4 products will be released 6 months after IOC. These releases will be designated "beta", "provisional", or "validated" according to their level of quality control and validation. At the end of the Cal/Val phase the goal is for all data products to have attained the level of "validated".

Following the initial releases of data to the data center, subsequent releases will follow the latencies shown in the data products table (above). Latency is defined as the average time under normal operating conditions between data acquisition by the SMAP observatory and delivery of the data to the data center. Applications agencies with needs for shorter data latencies than shown above must negotiate special data access arrangements (and potential cost-sharing) with NASA and the SMAP project.

Science Algorithms
The SMAP science data products will be generated on the Science Data System production system using science software developed on the SDS Testbed. The science software is based on algorithms for each product described in the Algorithm Theoretical Basis Documents (ATBDs).