“The spectrum of observations will be more finely divided with the next Landsat satellites; that will allow for even greater and more precise differentiation of the types of land cover on the surface of Earth.”
“Landsat optically observes Earth’s surface through measurement of reflectivity and temperature in polar ice and oceans, as well as across the Earth, and these are two key geophysical parameters for measuring and modeling surface energy balance.”
“This is really an exciting time for Landsat polar science, a new era so to speak. With Landsat Next on the horizon, the LEAP special request program and its observations of Earth’s polar regions—and the global cryospheric state more broadly—can only be expected to grow in impact and relevance.”
“We’re taking darkness out of the equation. Extending the ability to observe ice and polar ocean changes increases the probability of capturing major glacier calving events, wind-driven surface melting or warming, and coastal ocean ice shelf breakup that can be expected to occur more frequently in the future if the pace of warming does not slow.”
“[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.”
“While many previous studies have reported ongoing ice shelf thinning around Antarctica since the 1990s, we didn’t previously know that a lot of it started around then.”
“The Landsat program has produced an unmatched record of observational coverage of Earth’s surface extending back to 1972, offering stunning satellite views of landscapes all over the world. This collaboration between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has also yielded more than five decades of scientific discoveries as Earth’s climate has changed.”
“OpenET is working to make the unseen process of evapotranspiration as easy to track as checking the amount of rainfall in the daily weather forecast.”
“Landsat data has proved invaluable for much of the work we do to try and comprehend how Earth’s cryosphere is responding to a warming planet and to infer what those results mean for our collective future.”
“There is no more powerful tool for tracking land change through time than the Landsat series of satellites.”
“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 USGS Landsat Surface Reflectance products have revolutionized human-scale biophysical studies that require consistent and atmospherically corrected products.”
“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.”
“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.”
“The synergistic use of Landsat, GPM [Global Precipitation Measurement], and GFS [Global Forecast System] can help the world become more water-efficient and energy-efficient in growing food, while also becoming more affordable and convenient for farmers.”
“We live on this planet Earth. We all know that we want to leave this planet for our children. We know the importance of sustainability and I think that’s what Landsat’s all about. It’s about helping us manage the planet that we live on for the long-term. And that’s why it’s there and that’s why it continues to be here. And I expect it to be there for the next generation as well.”
“Our mission right now is really a quantum step forward from previous Landsats… I can’t wait to see what comes out of all of these emerging applications and how well it supports the user.”
“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.”
“I have really appreciated being able to use Landsat data as a ‘time machine’ to understand our changing environment.”
“We have so many options with Landsat Next, to add additional information and context to support our wetland managers as well as continuing the historical record of change and variability of our wetlands.”
“It is one of the greatest wetlands management tools that has become available in many years. The wetlands mapping plus WIT outputs are used on a daily basis by a very broad range of stakeholders, from government officers to planners and to those involved in on-ground rehabilitation and management—frankly it’s hard to know how we managed without it.”
“The Landsat data record is absolutely invaluable—wetland managers can start to understand if changes they are seeing take place over months, years or decades.”
“Landsat is the only operational satellite that combines thermal and optical data at the spatial resolution needed to assess water use and water rights, which is often at the level of individual agricultural fields.”
“Landsat is the gold standard calibration reference because the Landsat Program has committed to world-class radiometric and geometric calibration standards.”
“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.”
“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.”
“We got everything we asked for.”
“[The Landsat MSS sensor] transformed expectations of how we can know the Earth.”
“Landsat’s superpower is time travel… With phenology, vegetation phenology, and drought impacts, the time dimension is extremely important and more frequent data allows for higher accuracy and better characterization of agricultural phenomena.”
“Landsat and agriculture go hand in hand because agriculture is a seasonal phenomenon, and you really need to monitor it closely over time.”
“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.”
“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’.”
“Understanding how this planet works and helping people make better, informed decisions is really what we’re about in Earth Science.”
“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.”
The Satellite Stewards of Glacier Bay
“Landsat can see the surface—human settlements, forests, coastal systems. It helps us understand crucial areas of biodiversity on land, crop yields, how to manage our resources, how to protect them.”
“For more than fifty years now, Landsat satellites have helped us learn more about how Earth systems work, how human activities affect those systems, and how we can make better decisions for the future. Landsat 9, the latest joint effort by NASA and USGS, proudly carries on that remarkable record.”
“A half-century archive of Landsat’s Earth observations is a magnificent achievement in the history of science. This fifty-year record gives scientists a consistent baseline that can be used to track climate change and enables them to see changes to the land that might not otherwise be noticed.”
“Our ability to analyze decades of history through the Landsat data record provided a strong backbone to this work.”
“As one of the longest data archives suitable for this purpose, Landsat data allows us to analyze coastal wetland change over time-periods that enable us to monitor long-term directional change in the extent of the world’s coastal ecosystems and distinguish them from natural fluctuations. Our work on tidal flats and global coastal wetland change would not be possible without free access to a long-term, spatially comprehensive dataset such as Landsat.”
“Landsat data are essential for monitoring long-term changes of Earth’s ecosystems.”
“There’s still so much more information to retrieve from Landsat’s 50-year, multispectral data record.”
“If it weren’t for Landsat, we wouldn’t be where we are in terms of understanding our Earth.”
“We wouldn’t be where we are today without Landsat paving the way.”
“Many people have no idea how Earth imagery has improved their daily lives as it has become integrated into modern technologies. Like GPS and weather data, information from Landsat is woven into the fabric of our economy and society.”
“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,”
“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.”
“For 50 years, the Landsat program has documented the conditions on the Earth. Now, in the face of historic droughts, fires, and extreme weather events accelerated by climate change, it is more important than ever for us to continue this program into the future for the next 50 years.”
“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.”
“The user community has expressed great interest in maintaining Landsat continuity, supporting synergy with the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, and enabling new emerging applications that are critical to tackle the challenges in today’s global environment.”
“[W]e see—at least in the commercial sector—that these missions really depend on Landsat as a reference calibrated measurement to adjust or align their measurements to Landsat.”
“As the climate continues to warm and affect urban health, the Landsat satellites’ sensors are among our best tools for monitoring the thermal variations of the urban heat island.”
“Several satellite systems can now measure the surface urban heat island, but the Landsat program provides decades of continuous, comparable data in the detail necessary to examine variations within a city. That continuity helps scientists measure the impact of changes and track how development patterns change a neighborhood’s heat profile.”
“Satellites like those in the the Landsat program – which celebrates its 50th anniversary on July 23, 2022 – have become crucial for pinpointing urban risks so cities can prepare for and respond to extreme heat, a top weather-related killer.”
“With its superhuman sight, and decades of archived imagery, Landsat provides us with the ability to see through time, to track the vegetal movement which is beyond our normal sight and to see it for what it really is: a titanic unfolding of active and intentional life.”
“If you don’t know what Landsat (NASA/USGS) and Sentinel-1/Sentinel-2 (ESA) are, they are scientific Earth observation missions involving large, exquisitely calibrated satellites that capture imagery of the entire globe on a regular cadence. Landsat is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. In fact, there have been 9 different satellites bearing the Landsat name over those five decades—Landsat 9 was launched last year! The data they produce is open and hosted freely for anyone to access. Pretty wild.”
“It’s hard to quantify the value of Landsat, but the last time USGS tried in 2017 they estimated that it produces $3.45B in value to society annually. There’s a second important conclusion buried in that study: if they tried charging for the data, that value would likely vanish in the blink of an eye.”
“[I]n 2008 USGS first instituted the policy of giving away Landsat data for free (first with Landsat 7, then the rest of the archive in 2009). It probably felt like a crazy choice at the time after billions of dollars of investment in the program… but the effect was immediate and extraordinary. Roughly a 100-fold increase in downloads in a decade.”
“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.”
“The Landsat satellite program has provided images of the Earth’s surface for more than 40 years, and so it is ideal for documenting long-term changes in ecosystems such as giant kelp forests.”
“Landsat 9 data will be delivered in a format that is consistent with currently available data from the previous Landsat satellites. This provides an unbroken story of land changes through over 40 years of Earth observation data.”
“It’s really a new era for Landsat, in that we’re going to have two observatories with very similar capabilities and very similar—if not identical—performances operating together. And this is going to provide more data to the Landsat mission than we’ve ever had before.”
“Mr. Chair, in the era of climate disasters, the value of Earth observations and global cooperation has never been more apparent.”
“[B]eing able to produce maps with Landsat data that show how things have changed over time, and then actually seeing how they are improving and how we are losing less of these really critical and important ecosystems to me is really encouraging.”
“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.”
“We did a study… where we were looking at the main drivers of change in mangrove forests on a global scale. And we would not have been able to do that if it wasn’t for Landsat data and the standardized, well-calibrated data sets that come out of Landsat.”
