The Landsat 9 Ground System

Aaron Hensley a ground station technician
Within the large Radome at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Earth Resource Observation & Science Center, Aaron Hensley, a ground station technician, stands inside the pedestal of the 10-meter antenna to inspect communication components. The 10-meter antenna is the primary antenna for Landsat 7 and Landsat 8 communications in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Photo Credit: USGS/EROS/Heidi Dornbusc

The Landsat 9 ground system is designed around two main functions:

(1) command and control the Landsat 9 observatory in orbit

(2) manage the data transmitted from the observatory.

Ground System: Primary Components

The primary components of the Ground System are the Mission Operations Center (MOC), the Ground Network Element (GNE), and the Data Processing and Archive System (DPAS). These elements are being developed by DOI/USGS.

The MOC will define the set of scenes to be collected by the Observatory on a daily basis. The MOC will plan and schedule Observatory activities, command and control the Observatory, and monitor the Observatory and ground operating systems’ health and status.

The MOC will be located at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC).

The GNE will provide the hardware, software and networks to communicate Command and Telemetry data with the MOC and Mission Data to DPAS. The GNE will include a variety of Ground Stations to communicate with the Observatory for commanding and housekeeping data via the S-Band and to receive Mission Data from the Observatory over the X-Band.

The DPAS will ingest, process, distribute, and archive all Landsat 9 Mission Data. It will consist of four functionalities: Ingest, Storage and Archive, Image Processing, and Access and Distribution.

The Storage and Archive function will perform near-term and long-term archiving.

Ingest will perform preprocessing, scene framing, and ancillary data processing of the data.

The Image Processing function will process data to create L9 data products, and will perform image assessment.

Access and Distribution will provide a capability for authorized users to request Landsat 9 image collections. Access and Distribution will also provide a capability for all users to access data products.

The DPAS will be located at the USGS EROS Center in Sioux Falls, SD.