Reprocessing will start with the most recent data and work backwards to October 31, 2021 and will replace the previous version that is currently available for download. As a result, reprocessing of the Level-1 products will propagate through to all Collection 2 Level-2 products and U.S. Landsat Analysis Ready Data for the same period. Please note, the Product ID for each scene will be updated with the new processing date — reprocessed imagery will have a processing date that is March 1, 2023, or later.  

For science and application users, the overall impact of calibration updates on the atmospherically compensated Level-2 Surface Reflectance and Surface Temperature products is minor. Users are encouraged to review all improvements and impacts to determine if their existing Landsat 9 data should be replaced with the newly reprocessed data. 

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Several improvements to both Landsat 9 OLI and TIRS data will be made with these calibration updates: 

Improved (Systematic Terrain) Level-1GT Scenes  

An along track alignment adjustment of the OLI instrument improves L1GT accuracy by up to 20 meters. Although all L1GT products benefit, the greatest improvement is observed in areas where L1GT are the only products ever created (i.e., in areas where little or no ground control exits).

All scenes over Antarctica will be improved, along with several islands, Greenland, and coastal images made up largely of water.  

Improvements to OLI data 

1. Reduced banding between the 14 focal plane modules visible in the SWIR-2 band (Band 7) of Landsat 9's OLI over bright targets.
2. Improved cross-calibration and consistency between the Landsat 9 to Landsat 8 OLI sensors, affecting all Landsat 9 OLI bands. The greatest improvement is ~0.5 percent in Green band reflectance and ~5 percent in Cirrus band radiance. 

Improvements to TIRS data 

1. Updates to the TIRS absolute radiance, which affects top of atmosphere brightness temperature and surface temperature. The largest adjustment is ~0.65 degrees Kelvin in Band 11. 
2. Adjustments to improve the TIRS to OLI instrument geometric alignment.  
3. Sixteen detectors in TIRS Band 10 and three detectors in TIRS Band 11 have been replaced with on-board redundant detectors to reduce striping due to detector response changes. 

Please visit the Landsat 9 OLI and TIRS Calibration Notices webpage for more details about these improvements and updates. Additional communications will be published when this Landsat 9 reprocessing event is complete.

Please contact USGS EROS Customer Services with any questions about this information.  

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