On Saturday, January 31, Professor Dara Entekhabi and NASA successfully launched their Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite from the Vandenburg Air Force Base, California at 6:22 am Pacific time. “The lift-off was flawless and the deployments went very well,” said Entekhabi. Despite an unexpected 48-hour delay due to high wind speeds and minor repair work, the environmental monitoring satellite is now in orbit and prepared to provide global moisture maps that will link our planet’s water, energy and carbon cycles as well as assist scientists in efficiently forecasting severe weather hazards such as floods and droughts. For more information on the SMAP launch, see NASA’s website and the MIT News office story.