NASA Satellite's Dirt-Mapping Radar Bites the Dust - SMAP = Passive only

Artist's rendering of theSMAP satellite. The width of the
region scanned on Earth's surface during each
orbit is about 1000 km (image credit: NASA/JPL,Caltech)

NASA Satellite's Dirt-Mapping Radar Bites the Dust
SMAP Radar Fails But Mission Continues - SpaceRef
News | NASA Soil Moisture Radar Ends Operations, Mission Science Continues
JPL Says SMAP Radar Failure = Normal Operations - NASA Watch
SMAP Radar Fails | Astronomy News 

"Mission managers for NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) observatory have determined that its radar, one of the satellite's two science instruments, can no longer return data. ... The SMAP spacecraft continues normal operations and the first data release of soil moisture products is expected in late September. "Although some of the planned applications of SMAP data will be impacted by the loss of the radar, the SMAP mission will continue to produce valuable science for important Earth system studies," said Dara Entekhabi, SMAP Science Team lead at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. On July 7, SMAP's radar stopped transmitting due to an anomaly involving the radar's high-power amplifier (HPA)."

Keith's note: Wow. JPL is sure spinning this bad news on this $915 million mission. That's almost a billion dollars. The radar was at the core of SMAP's mission i.e. "one of the satellite's two science instruments". It failed. Sure, other stuff still works but that radar broke after only a few months. But JPL PAO wants you to think that "The SMAP spacecraft continues normal operations." So, I guess radar failure is considered "normal"?

SMAP Block Diagram

SMAP ends radar operations
"Although some of the planned applications of SMAP data will be impacted by the loss of the radar, the SMAP mission will continue to produce valuable science for important Earth system studies," said Dara Entekhabi, SMAP Science Team lead at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.
On July 7, SMAP's radar stopped transmitting due to an anomaly involving the radar's high-power amplifier (HPA). The HPA is designed to boost the power level of the radar's pulse to more than 500 watts, ensuring the energy scattered from Earth's surface can be accurately measured.
The SMAP project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, formed an anomaly team to investigate the HPA issue and determine whether normal operation could be recovered. A series of diagnostic tests and procedures was performed on both the spacecraft and on the ground using flight spare parts.
Following an unsuccessful attempt on Aug. 24 to power up the radar unit, the project had exhausted all identified possible options for recovering nominal operation of the HPA and concluded the radar is likely not recoverable.
NASA has appointed a mishap investigation board to conduct a comprehensive review of the circumstances that led to the HPA anomaly in order to determine how the anomaly occurred and how such events can be prevented on future missions. JPL also will convene a separate failure review board that will work with the NASA investigation.

SMAP - eoPortal Directory - Satellite Missions

• August 5, 2015: The JPL SMAP mission team continues to troubleshoot the anomaly that occurred on SMAP's radar instrument on July 7. The radar remains in safe mode. SMAP's radiometer instrument continues to operate nominally and is collecting valuable science data. ³¹⁾

- Detailed analyses by the team have isolated the radar anomaly to the low-voltage power supply for the radar's HPA (High Power Amplifier). The HPA boosts the power level of the radar's pulse to ensure the energy scattered from Earth's surface is strong enough to be accurately measured by the SMAP radar instrument. The team identified several candidate faults within the low-voltage power supply that could fit the observed telemetry behavior.

- Although several attempts to recover the radar have been unsuccessful, ongoing analyses have recovered valuable diagnostic data that are assisting the team in better understanding the nature and source of the issue.

NASA's SMAP Satellite Becomes Operationally Successful with NGC AstroM Published on ASDNews: May 26, 2015
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has declared the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) spacecraft fully operational, officially beginning the satellite's three-year mission to provide global measurements of soil moisture. This milestone also continues the 100 percent on-orbit success rate of Astro Aerospace, a Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) company, since its founding in 1958.
Launched Jan. 31 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, SMAP represents the future of Earth Science by helping researchers better understand our planet. SMAP's unmatched data capabilities are enabled in part by the largest spinning mesh reflector ever deployed in space, engineered by Astro Aerospace. The 6-meter reflector and boom are a critical system for SMAP, spinning at about 15 revolutions per minute (rpm) to create a conically scanning antenna beam of approximately 620 miles for total global mapping every two to three days.

Related/Background:

• spendergast: NASA's SMAP Satellite Successfully Launched
• spendergast: NASA SMAP.Satellite's Spinning Lasso to Map Soil Moisture