Landsat archives, its 9 millionth scene.
Each scene is a satellite image from space
about 115 miles wide.
Researchers and, well, just about anyone can download
scenes from the Landsat archive managed by USGS.
Landsat holds the title for the longest continuous
space-based record of Earth in existence.
That's 50 years of scenes like these, helping scientists
and researchers understand how our planet is changing over
time.
It will take Landsat
9 and its sister satellite, Landsat 8,
8 days to image all of Earth's land and coastal areas.
That means we get a complete picture of Earth
every eight days.
In this case, two
satellites are better than one.
Landsats 8 and 9 can work together to provide
near real time data about what's happening on the surface of our planet.
Landsat collects
images of each of our planet's seven continents.
Farms, forests, waterways, glaciers,
urban areas, Landsat sees it all.
Remember, you can't manage
what you can't measure, whether it's deforestation in the Amazon
or ice loss in Antarctica,
or urban sprawl in Shanghai.
Fire engine
liftoff
time 1756, we have liftoff.
Landsat 6 launched on October fifth, 1993.
Apogee kick motor should ignite right now and take Landsat
to its final circular orbit-- but it never made it to orbit.
NASA's team of scientists and engineers
got to work immediately to figure out what went wrong.
Turns out it was a rupture in the rocket fuel chamber.
They used failure as an opportunity to learn.
Six years later, the team launched Landsat 7.
Liftoff of the Delta II rocket with the advanced...
One of the most
technologically advanced Earth observing satellites of its generation
still in use today.
At least one
Landsat satellite has been orbiting Earth since 1972.
That's nearly 50 years of steadfast observation.
That first Landsat proved we could gather
digitally encoded data from space.
And changed the way we look at Earth
forever.
Never before
seen snapshots of land resources and the environment would be key
for critical decision making decades into the future.
Landsat collects light.
How intense that light is tells us about what's on the ground.
You can think of intensity like shades of a different color.
Landsat 9, the newest satellite to join the Landsat
fleet, sees 16,384 shades.
That's four times the depth of color of the previous Landsat,
meaning we'll be able to see more detail in darker spots
like coastal waters and dense forests.
True color
images are made by combining red, blue and green light.
Combined together, these visible bands of light make up all the colors
in the rainbow and all of Landsat's true color images.
Landsat also captures light that we can't see.
That type of light can reveal some incredible things
when you look at a false color image, like the difference between types of plants,
how healthy those plants are, healthy coral reefs and even dead coral reefs.
Fire tracking, ocean pollution, the possibilities are nearly endless.
There are two instruments aboard Landsat 9.
OLI-2 is all about light.
Once in orbit, OLI-2 collects
sunlight reflected off Earth's surface.
The light passes through a set of filters to separate out nine
specific wavelength bands in visible and infrared frequencies.
Each band provides different pieces of information
about what is down on the surface.
The second instrument aboard Landsat 9 called TIRS-2, collects thermal
infrared wavelengths, or temperature signatures
emitted by the Earth itself.
50 years ago, the U.S.
Geological Survey had an idea.
Satellites orbiting Earth that could help us
monitor our natural resources.
Today, the Landsat program is jointly managed
by NASA and the USGS, providing an unparalleled record
of Earth's changing landscapes for the benefit of all.
50 years of satellites.
50 years of life changing data.
one legacy continued with Landsat 9.