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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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 »

“We knew that ice had been retreating from this region recently but now, thanks to a wealth of freely available satellite data, we know this has been occurring pervasively along the coastline for almost half a century.”


“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.”


“Last year the White House found that GPS, weather satellites, and Landsat are the three most critical types of Earth-orbiting assets for civil applications, because they’re used by many economic sectors and fields of research.”


“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.”


“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.”


“Fire perimeters collected using Landsat imagery are accurate, timely and cost-effective.”


“In many cases the Landsat archive has provided the only consistent source of information to monitor changes in the surface of the Earth.”


“The Landsat satellites have also proved to be very useful, particularly for trying to do more detailed, finer-scale risk mapping.”


“I would summarize Landsat 8’s science impacts in three ways: More data, better data, and improved, expanded applications.”


“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.”


“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.”


“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.”


“The synergistic use of Landsat, GPM, and GFS can help the world become more water-efficient and energy-efficient in growing food, while also becoming more affordable and convenient for farmers.”


“There’s still so much more information to retrieve from Landsat’s 50-year, multispectral data record.”


“Satellite imagery can help us get the biggest bang for our buck by targeting conservation initiatives in a specific window of time at key locations. Landsat is the longest running Earth observation satellite system we have, and free access to this data enables researchers to look at the effects of seasonality, climate cycles, and long-term trends in land-use change.”


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


“Because Landsat’s been operating for so long—thermal imaging has been enabled since the 1980s—we can study how patterns in water use have changed over the landscape over long periods of time as the climate has changed and as land use patterns have changed. So Landsat has been really a critical sensor for our work.”


“Assessing land cover change, especially the dynamics of smaller water bodies, requires spatial resolution and temporal frequency that are currently only available from the Landsat program. The continuation of the Landsat program will increase the data quantity available for analysis.”


Landsat satellite imagery is ideal for gauging vegetation cover shifts because it supplies spectral data for surface areas of about 90 square meters – fine enough to track changing spectral signal patterns across large study areas.


“The rich history of Landsat (40+ years) enables not only change detection and trend analysis, but also provides a unique oppurtunity for hydrologic model calibration and validation as shown in this application.”


“The Landsat program doesn’t produce images like the ones of astronauts playing golf on the moon nor geologists scaling an erupting volcano, but it has created one of the most important scientific repositories of data ever made.”


“Landsat is an invaluable resource for developing these high resolution maps. Without the Landsat imagery we would not have the spectral information needed to decompose urban landscapes into Local Climate Zone types. Hence the data is at the heart of the project and it is the most critical piece—without Landsat there is no project.”


“The Landsat time series is so convenient and easy to use and has triggered science that was not possible a few decades ago.”


“Nothing is harder to image than the past. It is imperative that all Landsat observations are archived and made available to users.”


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.