Contributor: Terry Arvidson

The 17th Landsat Technical Working Group (LTWG) meeting was held in Virginia March 3–7, 2008. The meeting was organized and hosted by the USGS in Chantilly, Virginia. International Cooperator (IC) representatives from nine countries and members of the USGS Landsat and Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) projects and NASA LDCM project and Landsat Science Office discussed topics of technical interest. This was a transitional meeting, with the focus shifting away from the on-orbit Landsats 5 and 7 and toward the Landsat Data Continuity Mission currently under development. A full range of presentations on the LDCM were included in the agenda and several of the LDCM management and development team members were in attendance to meet the IC representatives. Another transition was in the leadership of the LTWG and Landsat Ground Station Operators Working Group (LGSOWG) meetings, from the Landsat project to the LDCM project. In addition to the LDCM presentations, other topics covered were the Landsat 5 battery anomaly, the Landsat Pilot Project enabling no-charge data access, the Global Land Survey 2005 (GLS2005), data validation and exchange, and the new Landsat 5 calibration parameter files (CPFs).  A USGS Headquarters representative reported on the National Land Imaging Program (NLIP).

Station reports were focused on addressing a variety of technical issues currently being worked by the projects. This was a new initiative and proved most informative to all. In addition, status reports were given on the China Brazil Earth Resources Satellite 2B (CBERS-2B) program by the Brazil representative, on the Thailand Earth Observation System (THEOS) program by the Thailand delegation, on TerraSAR-X by the German representative, and on the Sentinel program by the representative from the European Space Agency (ESA). Highlights of the week included a tour of the White House, time to explore the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum as well as the museums and galleries on the national mall in Washington DC, and dinner in the Lyndon B. Johnson room of the Capitol, capped off with a visit from both Senator John Thune and Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota.
Meeting Actions
Actions taken during the meeting will help facilitate the sharing of information among the members of the technical group, including documentation, software, technical information on the LDCM as it becomes available, and Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) formats as they get standardized in preparation for a potential TM data validation and exchange (DV&E) program.