Landsat Point of Contact

USGS Bruce QuirkNGAC Kass Green

NGAC Meeting, October 5, 2011

Landsat

• We can’t manage what we don’t measure.• Landsat is the only tool for measuring global

land use land cover change for the last 40 years.

Landsat History

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Landsat 5• Launched in 1984, with a 3-year design life• Current estimate (as of June 2011) for end of mission, based on fuel only, is

December 2012• Landsat 5 carried additional fuel to allow it to be lowered approximately 200

miles, retrieved, repaired, and placed back into orbit by a polar-orbiting Space Shuttle. Since this Shuttle capability was never developed, the extra fuel has been used to prolong the mission

Landsat 7• Launched in 1999, with a 5-year design life• Current estimate (June 2011) for end of mission, based on fuel only, is

December 2012

Both satellites are well beyond their designed lifetimes and could fail anytime

Status of Landsat 5 & Landsat 7

Operational Land Imager (OLI)

•9 spectral bands (including new blue and cirrus bands)

•30m resolution for VIS/NIR/SWIR, 15m for PAN

•185km swath width

•Collect 400 WRS-2 scenes/day; 700 TeraBytes/5 years

Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS)

•Developed by NASA

•Approximately 100m resolution in 2 bands

•185km swath width

Data Products

•Full resolution browse

•Scene-based reformatted raw (L0Rp) all bands

•Scene-based orthorectified (L1T) all bands

•Surface reflectance & ECV, defined by Landsat Science Team

Mission Characteristics

•Orbit: Polar, 705km circular, sun-synchronous, Worldwide Reference System-2 (WRS-2), 98.2° inclination, mid-morning (10:00 am), 16-day repeat, +/- 82 degrees latitude

•Launch Date: December 2012; Launch Vehicle: Atlas V

•Mission Life: 5 Years (with consumables for 10 years)

•Data policy: no charge or restrictions

Spacecraft

•Observatory mass of 3085kg

•Maximum power of 2130W

•3Tb Solid State Recorder

•384 Mbps X-band downlink

•Off nadir +/- 15 degrees

Landsat Data Continuity Mission (Landsat 8)

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Launch^ ^^ ^^ ^ ^LDCM ATP ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

OLI-Ship

SIC-ShipMRR

LRR

Project Milestones

Handover

MCDROLI A

TP

S/C ATPMPDR

5/10

12/1

2

MCRMOR

TIRS-Ship

SIR

OR

R

SIR – System Integration ReviewORR – Operational Readiness ReviewLRR – Launch Readiness Review

ATP – Authority to ProceedMPDR – Mission Preliminary Design ReviewMCR – Mission Concept Review

MOR – Mission Operations ReviewMCDR – Mission Critical Design ReviewMRR – Mission Readiness Review

11/0

6

7/07

4/08

7/09

12/0

9

10/1

0

10/1

1

1/12

9/11

10/1

2

9/12

11/1

2

3/13

Landsat 9 Status

• USGS has served as the Landsat data steward since program’s inception in 1966– experienced several changes in program leadership, including two unsuccessful attempts to

commercialize the satellites

• USGS Joined NASA in 2000 as full partner in program management– Presidential Decision Directive NSTC-3 (5/94, revised 10/00)

• NASA and USGS funded for Landsat 8 development; funding projected for USGS operations through 2017

• National Space Policy – June 28, 2010Land Remote Sensing The Secretary of the Interior, through the Director of the United States Geological Survey (USGS), shall: o Conduct research on natural and human-induced changes to Earth’s land, land cover, and inland surface waters, and

manage a global land surface data national archive and its distribution; o Determine the operational requirements for collection, processing, archiving, and distribution of land surface data to

the United States Government and other users; and o Be responsible, in coordination with the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Director of

National Intelligence, for providing remote sensing information related to the environment and disasters that is acquired from national security space systems to other civil government agencies.

In support of these critical needs, the Secretary of the Interior, through the Director of the USGS, and the NASA Administrator shall work together in maintaining a program for operational land remote sensing observations

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Landsat 9 Status (cont.)

• Holding Headquarters to Headquarters and Center to Center meetings

• Developing Landsat documentation – Joint Agency Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)

– Program Plan

– Level-1 Requirements

• Initial Trade Studies– TIRS Spatial Resolution – 120 meter versus 60 meter

– System Design Life – 5 versus 7 years

• Landsat Science Team reviewing and adding suggestions

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• Landsat data satisfies many science and operational applications across the globe

• Landsat is critical to global change research because of its uninterrupted ~40-year global record of landscape change

• Landsats 5 and 7 are well past their design lives; might not last until Landsat 8 is launched

• Landsat 8 (Landsat Data Continuity Mission) is in development and will launch in December 2012

• USGS is starting to work with NASA on Landsat 9

Summary

Landsat 7: Lena DeltaImage taken 7/27/2000 The Lena River, some 2,800 miles (4,400 km) long, is one of the largest rivers in the world. The Lena Delta Reserve is the most extensive protected wilderness area in Russia. It is an important refuge and breeding grounds for many species of Siberian wildlife.

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NGAC Landsat Subcommittee