Landsat 9

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Since 1972, Landsat data provide a unique resource for those who work in agricul­ture, geology, forestry, regional planning, education, mapping, and global change research. Landsat images also prove invaluable to the International Charter: Space and Major Disasters, sup­porting emergency response and disaster relief to save lives. With the addition of Landsat 9, the Landsat program’s record of land imaging extends to over half a century.

Landsat 9 captured five first light images: the Himalayas of Nepal, the Navajo Nation in the Western United States, the inlets of the Kimberly region of Western Australia, the Pensacola Beach on the Florida Panhandle, and the Lake Erie near Detroit, Michigan and Ontario, Canada.

Spacecraft and Launch Components

• Spacecraft Provider: Northrop Grumman
• Spacecraft Bus: Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems  (formerly Orbital ATK)
• Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Atlas V 401
• Spacecraft Speed: 16,760 miles/hr (26,972 km/hr)
• Design Life: 5 years
• Consumables: 10 years

Landsat 9, launched on September 27, 2021 at 1:12PM CST from Vanden­berg Air Force Base, California, onboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 401 rocket. Landsat 9 carries the Opera­tional Land Imager 2 (OLI–2), built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corpora­tion, Boulder, Colorado, and the Thermal Infrared Sensor 2 (TIRS–2), built at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland. Northrop Grumman designed and fabricated the space­craft and integrat­ed the two instruments.

NASA is responsible for the space segment (instruments and spacecraft/observatory), mission integration, launch, and on-orbit checkout. 

After NASA completes on-orbit checkout, the USGS is responsible for the ground system, flight operations, data processing, data product distribution and archiving.  

Landsat 9 Instruments 

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The instruments onboard Landsat 9 are improved replicas of those currently collecting data onboard Landsat 8, which are already providing data that is radio­metrically and geometrically superior than instruments on previous generation Landsat satellites.

The satellite carries two science instruments, the Operational Land Imager 2 (OLI-2) and the Thermal Infrared Sensor 2 (TIRS-2). The OLI–2 captures observations of the Earth’s surface in visible, near-infrared, and shortwave-infrared bands, and TIRS-2 measures thermal infrared radiation, or heat, emitted from the Earth’s surface. Both OLI and TIRS have a 5-year mission design life, although the spacecraft has 10+ years of consumables.

Landsat 9 improvements include higher radiometric resolution for OLI-2 (14-bit quantization increased from 12-bits for Landsat 8) allowing sensors to detect more subtle differences, especially over darker areas such as water or dense forests. With the higher radiometric resolution, Landsat 9 can differentiate 16,384 shades of a given wavelength. In comparison, Landsat 8 provides 12-bit data and 4,096 shades, and Landsat 7 detects only 256 shades with its 8-bit resolution. In addition to the OLI-2 improvement, TIRS-2 has significantly reduced stray light compared to the Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) which enables improved atmospheric correction and more accurate surface temperature measurements..

Operational Land Imager 2 (OLI-2)

The OLI-2 design is a copy of Landsat 8’s OLI, and provides imagery consistent with previous Landsat spectral, spatial, radiometric and geometric qualities. OLI-2 will provide data for nine spectral bands with a maximum ground sampling distance (GSD), both in-track and cross track, of 30-meters(m) (98 feet) for all bands except the panchromatic band, which has a 15-meter (49 feet) GSD. OLI-2 provides both internal calibration sources to ensure radiometric accuracy and stability, as well as the ability to perform solar and lunar calibrations. OLI-2 is designed by Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado. 

Nine spectral bands:

• Band 1 Visible Coastal Aerosol (0.43 - 0.45 µm) 30-m
• Band 2 Visible Blue (0.450 - 0.51 µm) 30-m
• Band 3 Visible Green (0.53 - 0.59 µm) 30-m
• Band 4 Red (0.64 - 0.67 µm) 30-m
• Band 5 Near-Infrared (0.85 - 0.88 µm) 30-m
• Band 6 SWIR 1(1.57 - 1.65 µm) 30-m
• Band 7 SWIR 2 (2.11 - 2.29 µm) 30-m
• Band 8 Panchromatic (PAN) (0.50 - 0.68 µm) 15-m
• Band 9 Cirrus (1.36 - 1.38 µm) 30-m

Thermal Infrared Sensor 2 (TIRS-2)

Landsat 9’s Thermal Infrared Sensor 2 (TIRS-2) measures thermal radiance emitted from the land surface in two thermal infrared bands using the same technology that was used for TIRS on Landsat 8, however TIRS-2 is an improved version of Landsat 8’s TIRS, both with regards to instrument risk class and design to minimize stray light.  TIRS-2 provides two spectral bands with a maximum ground sampling distance, both in-track and cross track, of 100 m (328 ft) for both bands. TIRS-2 provides an internal blackbody calibration source as well as space view capabilities. TIRS-2 is designed by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. 

Two spectral bands:

• Band 10 TIRS 1 (10.6 - 11.19 µm) 100-m
• Band 11 TIRS 2 (11.5 - 12.51 µm) 100-m

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Landsat 9 Data Products

Data acquired by Landsat 9 is processed into the Landsat Collection 2 inventory structure in the Worldwide Reference System-2 (WRS-2) path/row system, with swath overlap (or sidelap) varying from 7 percent at the Equator to a maximum of approximately 85 percent at extreme latitudes. 

Landsat 9 collects as many as 750 scenes per day, and with Landsat 8, the two satellites add nearly 1,500 new scenes a day to the USGS Landsat archive. Landsat 9 increases the volume of the USGS archive by imaging all global landmasses and nearshore coastal regions, including islands at solar elevation angles greater than 5 degrees that were not always rou­tinely collected prior to Landsat 8.

All Landsat 9 data and products are available for down­load through the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center at no charge.

Papers about Landsat 9's Pre-launch, Commissioning, and Early On-Orbit Imaging Performance Published in Science Journal 

A new Remote Sensing Special Issue contains information on the calibration and validation activities performed on Landsat 9 instruments to ensure the gold standard of geometric, radiometric, spatial, and spectral resolutions are upheld for delivering the expected data quality. Topics in the special issue include pre-launch characterization, testing, commissioning, and early on-orbit performance for the OLI and TIRS instrument and Landsat 9 spacecraft. Visit the Remote Sensing webpage to access the papers in this issue.

Landsat 9 Documentation and Information

• Landsat 9 Data Users Handbook
• Landsat Project Documentation
• Landsat 9 Information (NASA Landsat Science) 

USGS Technical Announcement (February 2022)