Updated - Aug. 5, 2015 at 2 p.m. PDT / 5 p.m. EDT 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.Detailed analyses by the team have isolated the radar anomaly to the low-voltage power supply for the radar's high-power amplifier (HPA). 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.Continued analysis and ground testing will be performed over the next several weeks. The next attempt to power up the radar may occur in late August.
Although NASA does not state it as such but the loss of the radar, well before it's design-lifetime, classifies as a partial mission failure.
Quote from: woods170 on 09/03/2015 10:12 amAlthough NASA does not state it as such but the loss of the radar, well before it's design-lifetime, classifies as a partial mission failure.And with Aquarius, which finished the Main Mission but failed before design life? It will also be classified as partial failure?BTW, losing those two missions will be a very hard hit on the water cycle and meteorology scientists and for EO in general. On the one hand they have got a lot of high resolution/high quality data that enables a lot more detailed and accurate models. On the other hand, now they have lost two of the three sources that they had (the third being the SMOS mission).
Losing the radar means SMAP cannot fulfil the Level 1 science objectives, or minimum success criteria, NASA set in approving the mission.