Landsat Next Defined

Landsat Next Defined

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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Ross Walter (left) holds a letter O and Ally (right) holds the letter A. Both letters were found in Landsat imagery.

Finding Your Name in Landsat

More than 715,000 visitors have transcribed their names and messages into Landsat letters using the “Your Name in Landsat” tool since it was unveiled in August as part of Camp Landsat 2024.

Read More »
Landsat Next Defined

Landsat Next Defined

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 »
Ross Walter (left) holds a letter O and Ally (right) holds the letter A. Both letters were found in Landsat imagery.

Finding Your Name in Landsat

More than 715,000 visitors have transcribed their names and messages into Landsat letters using the “Your Name in Landsat” tool since it was unveiled in August as part of Camp Landsat 2024.

Read More »

“The availability and accessibility of remotely sensed digital imagery obtained from Landsat satellites allow coastal scientist—and more importantly community members—the opportunity to map, evaluate and continuously monitor shoreline movement at regular intervals given the unprecedented pace of Arctic climate change.”


“From a valuation standpoint, Landsat is an extremely valuable public good just in its direct use—let alone the economic value of all the indirect uses built on the direct data.”


“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.”


“Landsat 8 imagery is an incredibly powerful resource. It is some of the most valuable open data produced by the US Government. Our partners rely on Landsat data for everything from evaluating droughts to tracking conflict.”


“Population in 1972… was around 4 billion people. When we launched Landsat 8 there was 7 billion people on the surface of the planet. Due to those factors our land use and land cover has changed dramatically and continues to change and we use the information and the images from the Landsat satellites to understand the change, to study the trends, and to predict the future.”


“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.”


“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.”


“The Landsat data record has been key to the Intertidal Extents Model methodology. Having such an extensive and dense time series of data has enabled us to partition the data into discrete tidal stages, and still be able to deal with issues such as cloud and cloud shadow—that is particularly crucial when dealing with the different conditions we encounter across the continent.”


“Our research would not have been possible if it weren’t for decades of reliable Landsat data to help us look back in time. We hope these findings will encourage people to not only mitigate the effects of increased wildfire activity, but also to limit emissions and curb global warming.”


“During abnormal growing seasons or natural disasters, satellites shine. Landsat is a robust and independent way to validate what our statistics are telling us.”


“Without Landsat’s long record, studies like ours would be impossible to undertake, because we don’t have a time machine to go back to the 1970s and 1980s and see how Turkey’s glaciers were doing then. Using Landsat and commercial satellite data together, we can map glaciers with high accuracy. It’s a powerful combination for studying the Earth from space.”


“One of the most powerful capabilities we can offer is a continuous global view of our planet. Without the observations of land, precipitation, the atmosphere, and our oceans, we would be flying blind in terms of what trends have been and how we can improve of our models for the future.”


“Landsat is really important because it gives us that time component. We can go back in time and see what an area let’s say a coastal zone or a mangrove forest has been like over time.”


“Science and technologies, especially satellite imagery, are absolutely essential because people’s livelihoods, natural resources, and biodiversity are connected to each other. Satellite imagery are our eyes in the sky, providing those insights and up-to-date information.”


“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.”


“The ability to see what was happening through time through Landsat imagery helped us tremendously… from sea-level, we hadn’t seen the signs of retreat that the Landsat imagery showed us—the diminishing of the glaciers, of the size and mass of the glaciers. It rocked our world. It truly changed the narrative of interpretation in Glacier Bay. The story that we shared with visitors about glaciers in Glacier Bay was transformed by that information.”


“LANDFIRE is the only complete, nationally consistent collection of spatial resource datasets with an ecological foundation.”


“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’.”


“Having all of this [30 m] Landsat data available more or less globally since 1984 will keep glaciologists busy for some more years, if not decades.”


“Without the free and open Landsat data policy, a lot of commercial applications wouldn’t be feasible and a lot of commercial companies—including GDA—would be very different than they are.”


“Landsat 8 is an incredible resource for global change research and has been used in a diverse array of scientific endeavors including the monitoring of deforestation, population growth, and glacier recession.”


“The USGS’ incredible gift of open-source [Landsat] imagery and this kind of tool are truly advancing what non-scientists can expect when it comes to views of their planet. Never before have regular people had such ready access to geographic data at this depth and quality.”


“The first step of ecosystem accounting is to actually map the dynamics of ecosystems over time.”


“As we continue the work to understanding our planet in the face of climate change, Landsat’s unique data and record of our changing Earth has proven invaluable,”


Landsat 9 bw
Landsat 9 bw
Landsat 9 bw

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.