New NASA satellite to track half a century of changing Earth observations

A Delta rocket launched the small Earth Resources Technology satellite in July 1972 with a simple mission: to capture multispectral images of the planet and assess changes over time.

Data from the polar orbiting satellite proved so useful that NASA and the US Geological Survey renamed the vehicle Landsat 1 in 1975, and organizations have since launched a succession of increasingly sophisticated “Landsat” satellites to pursue. observations. As a result, we now have a nearly half-century history of changes on the planet’s surface, from farms and forests to glaciers and urban areas.

While the data from the Landsat missions proved invaluable, it was also somewhat depressing. Satellites have amassed an impartial record of tropical deforestation in the Amazon, verifying claims made by environmental organizations. They also documented the growing water scarcity in the western United States and chronicled ice loss in the vast majority of Earth’s glaciers.

“Landsat provided a critical benchmark for assessing long-term changes in Earth’s terrestrial environment due to both natural and human forcing,” the scientists concluded in the journal. Remote sensing of the environment, in 2020.

Essentially, you can’t handle what you can’t measure. So if we’re smarter about how we’ve changed the planet, maybe humans can get smarter about how we’re changing the planet in the future.

Now, NASA is looking to advance the legacy of the Landsat program with the launch of the Landsat 9 mission on Monday. In many ways, the satellite is a clone of Landsat 8, launched in 2013. However, the new satellite includes an improved thermal infrared sensor as well as backup systems to keep the instrument running longer. These satellites each weigh about 3 metric tons; the original Landsat had a mass of 900 kg.

The Landsat 9 mission is scheduled to launch at 11:12 a.m. PT (6:11 p.m. UTC) on Monday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Although fog on the ground can obscure the launch, general weather conditions are very favorable for the take-off attempt.

An Atlas V rocket, built by the United Launch Alliance, will propel Landsat into a near-polar orbit. This will be the 300th total rocket from a Vandenberg Atlas family rocket, dating from August 1962. It will be the 88th launch of an Atlas V rocket, which has also already launched the Landsat 8 mission.

A webcast of the launch will be broadcast approximately 40 minutes prior to take-off.