Goddard Engineering and Technology Directorate

SNoOPI Goes to Space

GSFC engineers Austin Tanner (left) and Manuel Vega (right) at NanoRacks clean room facility in Houston, TX during the integration of the SNOOPI cubesat into the deployer.
GSFC engineers Austin Tanner (left) and Manuel Vega (right) at NanoRacks clean room facility in Houston, TX during the integration of the SNOOPI cubesat into the deployer.
SNoOPI (right) and BurstCube (left) cubesats integrated into the NanoRacks deployer. Cover plate with delivery team member signatures.
SNoOPI is a 6U CubeSat mission that will demonstrate and validate the in-space use of P-band signals of opportunity to measure root zone soil moisture and snow water equivalent.

The Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) InVEST tech demo SigNals Of Opportunity P-band Investigation “SNoOPI” has been delivered to Nanoracks and integrated into the deployer for launch with SpaceX Crew Resupply Mission CRS-30 this spring!  Led by PI James Garrison/Purdue and implemented by NASA Goddard and JPL, SNoOPI aims to use P-band signals of opportunity to measure root zone soil moisture and snow water equivalent.

SNoOPI is a 6U CubeSat mission that will demonstrate and validate the in-space use of P-band signals of opportunity to measure root zone soil moisture and snow water equivalent. This project will reduce the risk of utilizing this technique on future space missions, verifying important assumptions about reflected signal coherence, robustness to the RFI environment, and the ability to capture and process the transmitted signal in space.