Landsat: 43+ Years of Global Land Observation Landsat 1 launched July 1972 (MSS) Landsat 2 launched January 1975 (MSS) Landsat 3 launched March 1978 (MSS) (80m res. No MIR) Landsat 4 launched July 1982 (TM) (30m res. Inc. MIR) Landsat 5 launched March 1984 (TM) Landsat 6 launched October 1993 failed shortly after Landsat 7 launched April 1999, May 2003 SLC-Off (ETM+) Landsat 8 launched February 2013 (OLI) http://landsat.usgs.gov/
Landsat image, Zermatt 01/09/2010
Landsat is special. Landsat is one of 73 satellite-based global land observing programs operated by 34 different sovereign states (Belward & Skøien, 2015), but. Landsat-1 was the first near polar orbiting satellite observing the Earth's landmass The Landsat archive was the first to offer free global imagery (at 30 m resolution) since 2008
Landsat data the basis for > 2x refereed papers dealing with land cover than any other system At 28 years of operation, Landsat-5 operating for almost twice as long as any other Earth observing satellite (and there have been more than 200)
Multi Spectral Scanner (1972) LANDSAT (U.S.) initially known as ERTS 1972 Landsat 1 Multi-Spectral Scanner (MSS: 80m) 1975 Landsat 2 until 1982 1978 Landsat 3 until 1983 No Mid-IR band(s).
Landsat TM (1982-2011) bands mostly Landsat 5 1982 Landsat 4 Thematic Mapper (TM: 30m) until 1987 1984 Landsat 5 TM... Operational till 2011
Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) 1999-2003 (Landsat 7): Additional band versus Landsat 5 TM: PAN 0.52-0.9 (Green->IR) band 15m [and the Thermal band is 60m versus 120m for Landsat 5] Sensor malfunctionned, April 2003 (Scan Line Calibration) Landsat 7 data (1999-2002) used for Google Earth and Google maps mosaics
Landsat 7 Still receiving ~500 scenes / day useful data if the Force is with you Minimum striping Possible to combine multiscenes
Landsat 8 successfully launched February 2013
EO-1 launched November 2000: ALI Covering earth 1 minute after Landsat 7 Advanced Land Imager testing new technology for future Landsats Pushbroom versus Whiskbroom; (fewer moving parts ) 3 extra bands + PAN (10m); 16 bit data (0-65,535)
Landsat 8: Operational Land Imager
Landsat 8, first image: Fort Collins, CO 432 composite
Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) 753 composite
Aral Sea, OLI colour composite
Aral Sea, OLI cirrus band
Comparison of Landsat 8 OLI bands and 7 ETM+ bands http://landsat.usgs.gov/ http://landsat.usgs.gov/landsat_search_and_download.php
Landsat 8 Thermal data TIRS bands 10-11: collected at 100 meters but resampled to 30 meters to match OLI multispectral bands
Both OLI and TIRS generate 12 bit data (0-4095) Scaled to -> 16 bit (0-55,000 grayscales ) 8 bit = 0-255 11 bands 12-bit (including 1 at 15m) v 7 bands 8-bit data Data Delivery:.tar.gz compressed file size: ~1 GB (compressed), ~2 GB (uncompressed) Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) map projection - Polar Stereographic for scenes with center > 63 N/S World Geodetic System (WGS) 84 datum
Why do we need 12 or 16 bit data? Advantages: improved characterization of land cover reduced saturation e.g. snow / ice more detail in water / shadows Drawbacks: Landsat 5 TM Landsat 8 OLI Not required for many applications? Need to extra enhance to avoid black (GIS) Need to re-tweak ratio thresholds Higher data volume
Landsat 5 TM visible bands dashed = human eye sensitivity
Landsat 8 OLI visible bands note new band 1
The global Landsat archive: Status, consolidation, and direction Remote Sensing of Environment Mike Wulder et. Al 2015 Canadian Forest Service, Victoria, BC, V8Z 1M5, Canada
Landsat ground receiving stations Landsat 1-5: data captured only by stations with receiving area - International Co-operators nations Some ICs switched from L5 to L7 after 1999, but switched back after May 2003 At one time, MDA built 27 of world s 32 stations
Landsat archive Jan 2015
Contributed by coorperators
Still to be added to archive
USGS Archive Jan 2015 Sensor #images (m) archive (TB) image (MB) Years Annual acquisition rate MSS 1.3 79 32 43 30,652 TM 2.0 997 263 33 61,388 ETM+ 1.9 1726 487 16 119,135 OLI 400k 1332 1813 2 214,081 Total 5.6 4134 Current acquisition rate (L8) : ~725 images per day
LANDSAT Sequence - Kumtor gold mine, Kyrgyzstan, 1975
Kumtor gold mine, Kyrgyzstan, 1998
Kumtor gold mine, Kyrgyzstan, 2006
Kumtor gold mine, Kyrgyzstan, 2013
Kumtor is 100% owned by the Canadian mining company, Centerra Gold. The mine started operation in 1997 and produced more than 5.8 million ounces (180,000 kg) of gold through the end of 2006. However, in mid June 2012, the Kyrgyz Parliament issued a resolution to review Kumtor s compliance with relevant operational, environmental, health and safety and community standards.