Trio of smaller satellites to continue NASA/USGS’s Landsat legacy

With a trio of smaller satellites that may every detect 26 wavelengths of sunshine and thermal power, the Landsat Subsequent mission is anticipated to look very totally different from its predecessors which have been observing Earth for 50 years. This new plan for Landsat Subsequent, a joint mission of NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), is designed to offer extra frequent, and finer decision, knowledge of the altering floor of Earth.

“I believe that is going to be a phenomenally succesful instrument, with the most important leap in Landsat functionality since Landsat 4,” mentioned Bruce Prepare dinner, NASA Landsat Subsequent Mission Scientist at NASA’s Goddard House Flight Middle in Greenbelt, Maryland. “That is mainly the primary probability we have needed to utterly re-conceive the Landsat mission.”

The Landsat sequence of satellites has supplied a steady report of Earth’s floor from space since 1972, permitting researchers and useful resource managers to trace adjustments within the pure and human-influenced atmosphere. Landsat Subsequent, deliberate to launch by late-2030, will lengthen this report whereas offering extra frequent observations, larger decision pictures, and greater than twice the spectral bands as its predecessors. Earlier this month, NASA officers permitted Key Choice Level-A authorization for the mission.

Landsat 9, which launched in September 2021, is a single spacecraft that collects knowledge of Earth’s landscapes and coastlines each 16 days. Its sister satellite Landsat 8 can be in orbit, and collectively they collect pictures of any given spot on Earth’s floor each eight days.

NASA and USGS envision a Landsat Subsequent constellation of three spacecraft, orbiting in a configuration that would offer finer spatial decision and expanded spectral imaging capabilities each six days on the equator. When mixed with Landsat 9, heritage Landsat picture knowledge could be supplied at even larger temporal frequencies, Prepare dinner mentioned. These extra frequent observations are particularly essential for monitoring fast-changing processes like water high quality, crop well being, and pure hazards.

Landsat Subsequent may also collect higher-resolution, extra detailed pictures of Earth’s floor. Pixels from Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 are 98 ft (30 meters) huge, concerning the measurement of a baseball infield, in most wavelengths. For many Landsat Subsequent wavelengths, pixel measurement might be 33 to 66 ft (10 to twenty m) huge, concerning the width and size of a tennis court docket.

The three spacecrafts that make up Landsat Subsequent might be similar, every carrying an instrument or devices that detect 26 wavelengths spanning the seen to shortwave infrared and thermal infrared areas. That is greater than double the spectral bands of Landsat 9, and is designed to permit knowledge customers to glean much more info, Prepare dinner mentioned.

New spectral bands had been added to Landsat Subsequent in response to evolving science and consumer wants. For instance, new seen bands will assist scientists and useful resource managers handle water quality by figuring out chlorophyll or dissolved natural materials within the water, in addition to dangerous algal blooms. Pink edge and shortwave bands will assist establish stress in forests or croplands. New close to infrared and shortwave bands will present details about snow and ice floor states, water content material and freeze-thaw dynamics in a altering local weather.

Landsat heritage spectral bands have additionally been refined. For instance, Landsat’s SWIR2 band was subdivided into three bands to advance agricultural administration and the influence of crop residues on soil fertility, crop productiveness, and carbon sequestration. Landsat Subsequent may also enhance the variety of thermal infrared bands from two to 5, which can present measures of floor emissivity, enhance estimates of floor temperature, and assist with mapping minerals.

“One of many issues that we have actually targeted on within the Landsat Subsequent challenge is listening to the consumer group,” mentioned Chris Crawford, USGS Landsat Subsequent Mission Scientist and Co-Lead of the Landsat Science Workforce. “On the identical time, we’re nonetheless coming again to knowledge continuity as a guiding observational precept and guaranteeing that it doesn’t matter what future Landsat missions appear to be, they preserve continuity and compatibility with the prior historic report. As a result of that is actually the robust, distinctive attribute of Landsat: 50 years of measurements that we hope to hold into the subsequent 50 years.”