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.

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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.

Read More »

“There should be no competition between satellite remote sensing and fieldwork, there should only be collaborations.”


— Nathalie Pettorelli, Zoological Society of London , Jun 10, 2015
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“Measuring the past contributes to our understanding of the long-term consequences of our past economic and societal choices, and contributes to more informed management decisions in the future.”


— Jean-François Pekel, who used 3 million Landsat images to make global surface water , Dec 9, 2016
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“Landsat offers a globally consistent data set with a short enough revisit time to allow us to consider the percent of time that surface water is present on an annual and seasonal basis, while its 30 meter resolution also enables detection of smaller ponds and rivers, providing greater connectivity.”


— Amy Hudson, University of Maryland , Dec 18, 2015
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“NASA’s comprehensive study of Earth has provided much of the underlying understanding of current trends in the planet’s climate – including definitive measurements of rising sea levels, glacier retreat, ice sheet changes and the decline in the volume of the Arctic sea ice cap. Our satellites have provided global, long-term views of plant life on land and in the ocean. And our supercomputing power is allowing us to better understand how all the parts of the Earth system work together and he…


— Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator , Dec 4, 2015
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“There is no better source of information [than Landsat] to document the changes happening to our planet’s landscapes­—and we need this continuous record to help our communities become more resilient to the dramatic effects we are seeing.”


— Tanya Trujillo, Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, U.S. Department of the Interior , Jul 21, 2022
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“I have really appreciated being able to use Landsat data as a ‘time machine’ to understand our changing environment.”


— Bex Dunn, Earth Observation Scientist at Geoscience Australia , Jun 22, 2023
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“An alert system operating at the scale presented here depends on systematic global acquisitions, robust preprocessing, and free and accessible data. Only Landsat has these criteria at medium spatial resolutions, with Sentinel aspiring to emulate Landsat.”


— Matt Hansen, University of Maryland , Apr 27, 2016
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“[H]ope for the future comes from looking at the past. For more than five decades, Landsat satellites, developed by NASA and operated by the United States Geological Survey, have captured a wide range of information about the world’s land and water resources. They provide us access to a rich archive of imagery that shows how we can better manage and capitalize our land, driving sustainable increases in productivity and profitability.”


— Geoscience Australia , Mar 26, 2024
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“The Landsat program relative to agriculture monitoring has been profound. The whole idea that Landsat could look at the condition of crops, the acreage of crops, seeing how they evolve, diseases… it just has been tremendously impactful for agriculture.”


— Vince Salomonson; Professor Emeritus, University of Utah | Landsat Project Scientist, 1977–1989 , Dec 15, 2022
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“The stories that you can tell around the [Landsat] images, along with the images, make something very, very powerful. And you need both to make the kind of impact that we need to make today to help people understand the devastation we’ve caused. But [also] to  give them hope that we can turn things around. And that’s what these satellite images show so clearly.”


— Jane Goodall , Sep 13, 2023
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“Timelapse in Google Earth is possible because of the commitment to open and accessible data through NASA and the United States Geological Survey’s Landsat program (the world’s first and longest-running civilian Earth observation program) and the European Union’s Copernicus program with its Sentinel satellites.”


— Chris Herwig, Program Manager, Google Earth Engine , Apr 4, 2023
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“The Landsat satellites have provided an unprecedented volume of high quality medium-resolution imagery spanning more than 30 years. Without this record it would be exceedingly difficult to place presently observed changes in ice discharge into a longer-term context.”


— Alex Gardner, NASA JPL , Dec 18, 2015
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“Landsat 8 can collect more than 700 images per day—14 times as much as in the 1980s.”


— Wulder Coops , Sep 4, 2014
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“We looked at satellite images taken by the NASA-U.S. Geological Survey Landsat missions from 1972 and 1999 and the loss of forest and woodland cover along valleys and steep slopes was clear: eighty percent of the forests were gone. Through our analysis of Landsat forest change maps using GIS, we also calculated that the risk of landslide had increased fivefold during that time.”


— Lilian Pintea, VP of conservation science, Jane Goodal1 Institute, “ , Sep 29, 2015
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“This [Google Earth] update was made possible in a large part thanks to the Landsat program and its commitment to free and accessible open data. Landsat, a joint program of the USGS and NASA, has observed the Earth continuously from 1972 to the present day and offers a wealth of information on the changes to the Earth’s surface over time.”


— Chris Herwig, Google Earth and Earth Engine , Jun 27, 2016
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“Landsat has been historically the gold standard reference for calibration of many different missions across the whole globe. The radiometric quality for Landsat Next will be at least as good as any previous Landsat. So, we will maintain that standard for calibration and referencing for all missions.”


— Jim Pontius, Landsat Next Project Manager, NASA , Jun 29, 2023
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“Thanks to its detailed spatial resolution, Landsat made the estimation of small reservoirs’ surface area possible.”


— Nicolas Avisse, Laval University , Dec 16, 2016
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“When I arrived in Gombe 50-plus years ago, looking up at the stars, it never occurred to me that one day, we’d be relying on remote sensing—satellites circling the globe high above—to help unite communities of people and save Gombe’s chimpanzees. NASA—through its resources and data and funding—is helping us to apply the kinds of innovative solutions needed to address the complex problems people and chimpanzees face today.”


— Jane Goodall , Sep 29, 2015
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“With the full Landsat record available, we can finally look at really big problems, like the global carbon cycle.”


— Jeff Masek , Mar 26, 2015
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“We are very excited to employ integrated Landsat and Sentinel-2 data. The combined observations provide an unprecedented capability and, we expect, an unprecedented record of global land change.”


— Matt Hansen, professor at the University of Maryland and OPERA project partner , Apr 18, 2023
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“The relatively high spatial detail from Landsat allows differentiation of water use by crop type and individual farm field. At the moment, only Landsat can provide a consistent historical data going back to the 1980s that is long enough for trend analysis and investigate the relationships between management decisions and climatic drivers.”


— Gabriel Senay, Research Physical Scientist with USGS EROS , Dec 12, 2016
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“With Landsat we can see temperature of individual fields and how it varies from field-to-field. The temperature of the land surface gives us a good indication of how rapidly water is evaporating off that surface. And this is really important for knowing how healthy the crops are and also for supplying information for irrigators: how much water was used last week and how much do they need to replenish in the current week to keep the crops healthy.”


— Martha Anderson, U.S. Department of Agriculture and Landsat Science Team member , Feb 5, 2018
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“You can acquire data until the cows come home. But if the data isn’t available, you can only go so far. If people can’t rely on data availability and continuity, they won’t build a system to use it. And then the whole puzzle falls apart.”


— Alyssa Whitcraft, program scientist at GEOGLAM , Oct 29, 2015
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“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
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ABOUT LANDSAT

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.