Contributor: Steven T. Labahn, USGS

This year’s Landsat Ground Station Operators Working Group (LGSOWG#38) meeting was held in Berlin, Germany, September 28–October 5, 2009. The meeting was jointly organized by the USGS and NASA and was hosted by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Participants from 11 countries, including members of the USGS Landsat and Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) Projects, represented 14 international ground stations and discussed a wide range of programmatic and technical topics.

Presentations included Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 mission statuses, the Landsat Project’s Web-enabled product distribution statistics, Landsat 4 Thematic Mapper (TM) and Landsat 1-5 Multi-Spectral Scanner (MSS) product development progress, the Global Land Survey Projects, the Landsat Global Archive Consolidation initiative, proposed data validation and exchange modifications, and future development plans. With the LDCM ground system recently undergoing a major re-architecture activity, this was a primary topic of discussion. LDCM related presentations included project and ground system status, ground system and downlink overview, data processing flow, and the LDCM Ground System-to-International Cooperator (IC) interface including the IC Web Portal. Additionally, the USGS Land Remote Sensing Program provided the attendees with an overview of the future land remote sensing satellite data downlink framework agreement along with the National Land Imaging initiative’s international vision and goals. A Landsat Science Team update was also presented, providing an update on its working group activities and several key research projects.
Each International Cooperator briefed the group on the status of their systems, addressed their future satellite mission(s) and ground system plans, and provided an overview of their data distribution statistics and business model impacts since the introduction of Landsat web-enabled data. Finally, a representative from the Australian Department of Climate Change capped the meeting with a briefing on the Group on Earth Observation (GEO) Forest Carbon Tracking (FCT) initiative. ICs in attendance included representatives from the following countries and organizations:
+ Australia (GA-NEO)
+ Brazil (INPE)
+ Canada (CCRS)
+ China (CEODE)
+ Europe (ESA)
+ Germany (DLR)
+ Indonesia (LAPAN)
+ Japan (RESTEC)
+ Mexico (CONABIO)
+ Sweden (SSC)
+ Thailand (GISTDA)