Landsat 9 to Continue Land Imaging Legacy of the U.S. Space Program

Landsat 9 to Continue Land Imaging Legacy of the U.S. Space Program

Landsat 9 satellite will carry two moderate resolution sensors, one that captures imagery in visible, near infrared and shortwave-infrared light, and another that measures the thermal infrared radiation, or heat, of Earth’s surfaces.

Landsat 9 satellite will carry two moderate resolution sensors, one that captures imagery in visible, near infrared and shortwave-infrared light, and another that measures the thermal infrared radiation, or heat, of Earth’s surfaces.

In recent news update by NASA, NASA and USGS are working together on Landsat 9, schedule to launch in 2023.  NASA will build, launch, perform the initial check-out and commissioning of the satellite and USGS will operate Landsat 9 and process, archive, and freely distribute the mission’s data.

Landsat program is longest running and one of the great programs running by U.S. Space Program. On July 23, 1972 the Earth Resources Technology Satellite was launched. This was eventually renamed to Landsat.

Landsat program provide moderate-resolution satellite imagery for those who work in agriculture, geology, forestry, regional planning, education, mapping, and global change research. Landsat images are also invaluable for emergency response and disaster relief.

President Obama’s 2016 budget proposal calls for initiation of a Landsat 9 spacecraft as an upgraded rebuild of Landsat 8 and funded the development of a low-cost thermal infrared (TIR) free-flying satellite for launch in 2019 to reduce the risk of a data gap in this important measurement.

The low-cost thermal infrared (TIR) is a small and cheaper satellite to ensure data continuity by flying in formation with Landsat 8.

“Moving out on Landsat 9 is a high priority for NASA and USGS as part of a sustainable land imaging program that will serve the nation into the future as the current Landsat program has done for decades,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters, Washington. “Continuing the critical observations made by the Landsat satellites is important now and their value will only grow in the future, given the long term environmental changes we are seeing on planet Earth.”

Landsat 9 satellite will carry two moderate resolution sensors, one that captures imagery in visible, near infrared and shortwave-infrared light, and another that measures the thermal infrared radiation, or heat, of Earth’s surfaces.   The satellite sensors will have the ability to detect more variation in intensity than the first seven satellites in the Landsat program.

“Landsat is a remarkably successful partnership,” said Sarah Ryker, USGS deputy associate director for climate and land use change, Reston, Virginia. “Last year the White House found that GPS, weather satellites, and Landsat are the three most critical types of Earth-orbiting assets for civil applications, because they’re used by many economic sectors and fields of research. Having Landsat 9 in progress, and a long-term commitment to sustainable land imaging, is great for natural resource science and for data-driven industries such as precision agriculture and insurance.”

“This is good news for Goddard, and it’s great news for the Landsat community to get the next mission going,” said Del Jenstrom, the Landsat 9 project manager at NASA Goddard. “It will provide data consistent with, or better than, Landsat 8.”

“With a launch in 2023, Landsat 9 would propel the program past 50 years of collecting global land cover data,” said Jeffrey Masek, Landsat 9 Project Scientist at Goddard. “That’s the hallmark of Landsat: the longer the satellites view the Earth, the more phenomena you can observe and understand. We see changing areas of irrigated agriculture worldwide, systemic conversion of forest to pasture – activities where either human pressures or natural environmental pressures are causing the shifts in land use over decades.”

“We have recognized for the first time that we’re not just going to do one more, then stop, but that Landsat is actually a long-term monitoring activity, like the weather satellites, that should go on in perpetuity,” Masek said.

Categories: Remote Sensing

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