Landsat Science

Landsat Science

Landsat Science

Landsat Science

50 Years of

Landsat Science

“If you really want a long history of understanding any process on Earth, Landsat is where you should go.”

-Tasso Azevedo, MapBiomas Initiative

50 Years of

Landsat Science

“If you really want a long history of understanding any process on Earth, Landsat is where you should go.”

-Tasso Azevedo, MapBiomas Initiative

50 Years of

Landsat Science

“If you really want a long history of understanding any process on Earth, Landsat is where you should go.”

-Tasso Azevedo, MapBiomas Initiative

Landsat Next Defined

Landsat Next Defined

June 29, 2023

Landsat Next is on the horizon—the new mission will not only ensure continuity of the longest space-based record of Earth’s land surface, it will fundamentally transform the breadth and depth of actionable information freely available to end users. Take a look at the new capabilities that will define the next Landsat mission.

Data Wrangling with Dana Ostrenga

April 9, 2025

Data interoperability expert Dana Ostrenga explains how government and commercial Earth observation satellites provide broader support to the scientific community when used together.

Maps of the canopy height of trees in southern Florida before and after Hurricane Milton in 2024. After the hurricane, the tree canopy height is lower in some regions than before the storm.

Mapping Forest Damage from Hurricane Milton on Florida’s West Coast

March 28, 2025

Rising sea levels and increased ocean temperatures are supercharging hurricanes. Using satellite data can help monitor vulnerable ecosystems.

Data as Good as it Gets:
A Discussion with Brian Markham

March 20, 2025

Why do we calibrate Landsat data? We spoke with Brian Markham, a key figure of Landsat calibration science for four decades. He said that it all comes down to this: “If we’re using a system to quantify changes on the Earth, we must make sure the system we’re using is not changing.”

Landsat Next Defined

Landsat Next Defined

June 29, 2023

Landsat Next is on the horizon—the new mission will not only ensure continuity of the longest space-based record of Earth’s land surface, it will fundamentally transform the breadth and depth of actionable information freely available to end users. Take a look at the new capabilities that will define the next Landsat mission.

Data Wrangling with Dana Ostrenga

April 9, 2025

Data interoperability expert Dana Ostrenga explains how government and commercial Earth observation satellites provide broader support to the scientific community when used together.

Maps of the canopy height of trees in southern Florida before and after Hurricane Milton in 2024. After the hurricane, the tree canopy height is lower in some regions than before the storm.

Mapping Forest Damage from Hurricane Milton on Florida’s West Coast

March 28, 2025

Rising sea levels and increased ocean temperatures are supercharging hurricanes. Using satellite data can help monitor vulnerable ecosystems.

Data as Good as it Gets:
A Discussion with Brian Markham

March 20, 2025

Why do we calibrate Landsat data? We spoke with Brian Markham, a key figure of Landsat calibration science for four decades. He said that it all comes down to this: “If we’re using a system to quantify changes on the Earth, we must make sure the system we’re using is not changing.”

Stirrings at Mount Spurr

April 17, 2025

Stirrings at Mount Spurr

April 17, 2025

Relics of a Red World in Bighorn Basin Folds of rusted rock neighbor the Bighorn Canyon’s deep scar in the western United States.

Relics of a Red World in Bighorn Basin

April 16, 2025

“Landsat 8 has been instrumental in monitoring smoke plumes as they spread across the Ninewa plains.”

— Wim Zwijnenburg, Humanitarian Disarmament Project Leader for PAX , Oct 25, 2016

“When we showed historical Landsat and more recent high resolution images to communities and shared our analysis, people realized what they’d lost over time and wanted to engage in conversations about how to bring the forests back.”

— Lilian Pintea, VP of conservation science, Jane Goodall Institute , Sep 29, 2015

“With a launch in 2023, Landsat 9 would propel the program past 50 years of collecting global land cover data. That’s the hallmark of Landsat: the longer the satellites view the Earth, the more phenomena you can observe and understand.”

— Jeff Masek, Landsat 9 Project Scientist , Apr 16, 2015

“We’ve got this data of every field, of every country…. the archive is just going to continue to yield good information, good science, better management, reduce costs. It’s incredible.”

— John Schott, Rochester Institute of Technology, on the Landsat archive , Jan 9, 2018

“Over the past 50 years, eight Landsat satellites have circled the planet, which have helped to save and improve lives and support our economy. NASA will continue to work with USGS to improve access to Landsat’s unprecedented 50-year record and build on the program’s legacy.”

— Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator , Jul 21, 2022

“Usage rocketed in 2008, when Landsat made its images free. More than a million images were downloaded in the first year, compared with a previous annual high of 25,000 images sold. More than 20 million images have been downloaded since the archive opened and the rate continues to increase.”

— Wulder & Coops , Sep 4, 2014

“As the impacts of the climate crisis intensify in the United States and across the globe, Landsat satellites are crucial to providing data and imagery to help make science-based decisions on key issues including water use, wildfire impacts, coral reef degradation, glacier and ice-shelf retreat, and tropical deforestation.”

— David Applegate, USGS Director , Dec 20, 2023

“Our new interface specifically uses Landsat to track flow velocity fields of Greenland’s outlet glaciers and how they have changed over time.”

— M. Scheinert Scheinert, Ralf Rosenau, and Benjamin Ebermann , Dec 29, 2016

“Science and reliable data need to be at the heart of policy decisions around the globe if we are to tackle climate change and other serious environmental challenges facing our world. It is vital that we share the trusted data that comes from Earth observation so citizens, scientists, and political leaders everywhere can most effectively work together to meet these most difficult challenges.”

— Secretary Sally Jewell , Nov 13, 2015

“…Landsat and Copernicus, the best two examples of government satellite programs that have positively impacted global development as result of their free and open data policy.”

— Anne Hale Miglarese, Founder & CEO of Radiant.Earth. , Aug 20, 2018

“In a world of scarce resources, there are distinct tradeoffs in costs and benefits of land use, and whether to conserve or convert forest to cropland. Map-based images are perhaps one of the most succinct means of helping policymakers digest complex ideas of social and economically driven environmental change.”

— Glenn Bush, a researcher at the Woods Hole Research Center , May 7, 2015

“Landsat is the crown jewel of Earth Observation datasets—unique 40+ year archive.”

— Steven Brumby, co-founder Descartes Labs , Jun 14, 2017

“Mr. Chair, in the era of climate disasters, the value of Earth observations and global cooperation has never been more apparent.”

— Kevin Conole, Senior Program Specialist, NASA Office of International and Interagency Relations to 59th Session of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space Scientific and Technical Subcommittee , Feb 14, 2022

“We hope to accelerate innovation in climate research, humanitarian relief, and disaster preparedness efforts around the world by making Landsat data readily available near our flexible computing resources.”

— Jed Sundwall , Mar 19, 2015

“The 30-year record of the Landsat sensors (i.e. TM, ETM+, and OLI) provides a unique data archive for studying the impacts of climate change on ecosystems worldwide, in our case, coastal marshes.”

— Yu Mo, University of Maryland , Dec 12, 2016

“During the decade following 1969, a singular development catapulted computer mapping: the launch of Landsat by NASA and the U.S. Department of the Interior in July 1972.”

— Joe Francica , Dec 31, 2018

“Landsat, with its five-decade record of robust collection, calibration and archiving, and its longstanding service as a global reference to cross-calibrate other missions, improves not only the quality of those systems but the overall quality of the global ‘system of systems’.”

— Kevin Gallagher, Associate Director for Core Science Systems, USGS , Dec 1, 2022

“Global Forest Watch’s ability to take advantage of Landsat imagery to produce a global forest monitoring platform highlights why remote sensing has become such a revolutionary technology. The imagery has achieved a state-of-the-art quality—NASA’s Landsat data is delivered in 30x30meter squares and has been for the past 40 years. Beyond this, it has been made radically accessible. Since 2008, anyone has been able to view and download the data from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) websi…

— Sarah Ruiz, writer/editor at Global Forest Watch , Apr 11, 2019

“Another landmark program within USGS is called Landsat… USGS made a decision…to be able to open up that data, make it free, and the scientific discoveries, the articles, the access, the utility of that data just went absolutely through the roof. So it’s been a really wonderful story about how opening up scientific data allows more discovery, gets people more excited… We really do try to put our data out there in a way that it is usable by the most amount of people as possible.”

— Mike Tischler, Director of USGS National Geospatial Program , May 15, 2018

“Landsat’s work is epic in scale. In 43 years, it has amassed over a petabyte of data, with over 4 million scenes and counting.”

— Esri , Mar 19, 2015

“Landsat satellite data are the most important source we have about how much deforestation happens each year across the Amazon.”

— Doug Morton, Chief of the Biospheric Sciences Lab at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center , Apr 19, 2021

“Thanks to Landsat, we were able to dramatically improve our satellite base map in Google Earth and Google Maps on two separate occasions, first in 2013, and again in June 2016. Our most recent 15 meter-per-pixel global mosaic was made from over 1.5 million Landsat 7 and Landsat 8 images and forms the view of Earth you see across our mapping products for the first twelve zoom levels of the imagery basemap.”

— Chris Herwig, Google Earth and Earth Engine , Jul 28, 2017

“It’s being able to go back in time for the same location, with the same program, that’s given us a tremendous amount of really valuable information… With Landsat we can do that because the archive is so rich.”

— Alan Belward, scientist at European Union’s Joint Research Center , Oct 18, 2017

“Data from Landsat and the MODIS sensor are well-suited to help people make informed policy decisions about ecosystem health, water management, agriculture and much more.”

— Jim Irons , Dec 17, 2014

The NASA/USGS Landsat Program provides the longest continuous space-based record of Earth’s land in existence. Landsat data give us information essential for making informed decisions about Earth’s resources and environment.