Landsat Next

Mission Segments

Space

Landsat Next will consist of three identical satellite observatories, equally spaced in orbit to provide the triplet constellation a 6-day revisit of any location on Earth’s land and coastal regions. The entire constellation will be a Category 2, Class B mission with a 5-year design life, where each observatory will be composed of a Class B spacecraft and a Class C instrument suite. The instrument technical performance is not affected by the risk class designation, and the instruments will include elements and mechanisms more typical of Class B instruments to ensure reliability, resiliency, and robustness. 

 

Each Landsat Next observatory will occupy a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 653 kilometers (406 miles), have an inclination of ~98 degrees, and image the ground track at the equator at 10:10 am ± 5 minutes (mean local time at descending node). For each individual observatory to achieve an 18-day temporal revisit based on the field-of-view requirements, the trio will fly a lower altitude than previous Landsat satellites.

Graphic displaying data acquisitions for Landsat 7, 8, 9 and Next.
Scene and data acquisitions for four Landsat missions. Landsat Next will acquire close to three times as many scenes and 10 times the amount of data than either Landsat 8 or Landsat 9. Notes: 1) Daily scenes are based on the average number of scenes per day. Data estimates are based on the size of compressed Level-1 scene bundles. 2) Landsat 7 is operating at a lower orbit during its extended science mission. It is still collecting 415 scenes per day. When Landsat 7 was first launched, it collected an average of 250 scenes per day. The numbers used in this graphic are an average of daily scenes collected over the lifespan of Landsat 7. 3) Landsat Next numbers are based on current estimates and have some built-in assumptions. Credits: Graphics - NASA Landsat Communications and Public Engagement Team (Ross Walter); Data numbers and calculations – USGS EROS Center (Linda Owen and Esad Micijevic).

Launch

Details of the launch vehicle are not finalized at this point. All three Landsat Next observatories will be on one launch vehicle.

Ground

The Landsat Next ground system will be built on the backbone of previous systems. USGS will build and deliver the ground system, operate the observatories, and process and distribute the data. The Mission Operations Center will be at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, while the Data Process and Archive System (DPAS) will be at the USGS/EROS facility in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

WRS-3

Images, or scenes, acquired by the former Landsat missions were cataloged and referenced using previous Worldwide Reference System (WRS) grids (WRS-1 and WRS-2). To accommodate the Landsat Next repeating ground track and global revisit cycle, a new global grid reference system called WRS-3 was established to acquire, catalog, and distribute Landsat Next scenes. Preserving the previous global reference system and heritage view angle geometry was considered less critical to the overall Landsat Next mission architecture, since science applications are increasingly moving from scene- to pixel-based analysis using BRDF-normalized data.

Graphic showing an example path, with scene dimensions, from the new Worldwide Reference System (WRS-3) for Landsat Next.
A new Worldwide Reference System, WRS-3, was developed for Landsat Next due to the change in orbital parameters. The WRS-3 will provide a method to acquire, index, and catalog Landsat Next scenes. Image credit: NASA Landsat Communications and Public Engagement Team.
WRS-3 PARAMETER
VALUE
Equatorial Altitude
653 km
Inclination
97.9835 degrees
Mean Local Time (Descending Node)
10:10 am ± 5 minutes
Number of Paths
265
Number of Rows
248
Repeat Cycle
18 days
Descending Node Row
60
Longitude of Path 001, Row 060
-65.2 degrees (65.2 W)
Swath Width
164 km
Along-Track Scene Length
168 km
Scene Size
164 km x 168 km

Mission Schedule and Lifecycle

Landsat Next is expected to launch in 2031. NASA-managed satellite programs divide a mission lifecycle into distinct phases. Phase A is concept and technology development; Phase B is preliminary design and technology completion; Phase C is final design and fabrication; Phase D is system assembly, integration/testing, and launch readiness; Phase E starts after on-orbit operational checkout and ends at the mission’s operational end. Landsat Next passed Key Decision Point-A on November 29, 2022 and is now in Phase A of mission development.