” Todays successful launch is a major turning point in the almost 50-year joint partnership in between USGS and NASA who, for years, have partnered to collect valuable clinical details and utilize that information to shape policy with the utmost scientific stability,” stated Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland. “As the impacts of the environment crisis intensify in the United States and throughout the world, Landsat 9 will provide data and images to help make science-based decisions on key problems including water use, wildfire effects, reef destruction, glacier and ice-shelf retreat, and tropical logging.”
The very first Landsat satellite launched in 1972. Since then, NASA has actually always kept a Landsat in orbit to gather images of the physical material covering our planets surface and modifications to land use. Those images permit scientists to keep an eye on phenomena including agricultural efficiency, forest degree and health, water quality, reef habitat health, and glacier dynamics.
An artists conception of the Landsat 9 spacecraft, the ninth satellite released in the long-running Landsat program, high above the Western United States. Credit: NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center/Conceptual Image Lab
” The Landsat objective is like no other,” said Karen St. Germain, director of the Earth Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “For nearly 50 years, Landsat satellites observed our house planet, supplying an unequaled record of how its surface has actually altered over timescales from days to decades.
Landsat 9 joins its sibling satellite, Landsat 8, in orbit. Working in tandem, the two satellites will gather images spanning the whole planet every eight days.
” Landsat 9 will be our brand-new eyes in the sky when it comes to observing our changing world,” stated Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA. “Working in tandem with the other Landsat satellites, as well as our European Space Agency partners who run the Sentintel-2 satellites, we are getting a more extensive look at Earth than ever in the past.
Landsat 9 rocket launch. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
The instruments aboard Landsat 9– the Operational Land Imager 2 (OLI-2) and the Thermal Infrared Sensor 2 (TIRS-2)– procedure 11 wavelengths of light radiated or showed off Earths surface, in the noticeable spectrum as well as other wavelengths beyond what our eyes can find. As the satellite orbits, these instruments will capture scenes throughout a swath of 115 miles (185 kilometers).
” Launches are always exciting, and today was no exception,” stated Jeff Masek, NASA Landsat 9 job scientist. “But the finest part for me, as a scientist, will be when the satellite starts delivering the information that people are waiting on, adding to Landsats legendary reputation in the data user community.”
Landsat 9 rocket launch. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
The USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, stores and processes data from the instruments, continuously including that info to the 5 decades of information from all of the Landsat satellites.
All Landsat images and the embedded information are totally free and openly available, a policy that has actually resulted in more than 100 million downloads since its inception in 2008.
NASA handles the Landsat 9 mission. United Launch Alliance is the rocket company for Landsat 9s launch. Northrop Grumman in Gilbert, Arizona, constructed the Landsat 9 spacecraft, integrated it with instruments, and evaluated it.
The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket with the Landsat 9 satellite onboard launches, Monday, Sept. 27, 2021, from Space Launch Complex 3 at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The Landsat 9 satellite is a joint NASA/U. S. Geological Survey objective that will continue the legacy of monitoring Earths land and coastal areas. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
Landsat 9, a NASA satellite developed to keep track of the Earths land surface area, successfully introduced at 2:12 p.m. EDT Monday from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
A joint mission with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Landsat 9 lifted off on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Vandenbergs Space Launch Complex 3E. Norways Svalbard satellite-monitoring ground station acquired signals from the spacecraft about 83 minutes after launch. Landsat 9 is performing as expected as it travels to its last orbital altitude of 438 miles (705 kilometers).
” NASA utilizes the special assets of our own unmatched fleet, as well as the instruments of other nations, to study our own world and its climate systems,” stated NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “With a 50-year information bank to develop on, Landsat 9 will take this historical and invaluable international program to the next level. We look forward to working with our partners at the U.S. Geological Survey and the Department of the Interior once again on Landsat Next, since we never stop advancing our work to understand our world.”
The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket with the Landsat 9 satellite onboard launches, Monday, Sept. 27, 2021, from Space Launch Complex 3 at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The Landsat 9 satellite is a joint NASA/U. A joint mission with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Landsat 9 raised off on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Vandenbergs Space Launch Complex 3E. The first Landsat satellite launched in 1972. United Launch Alliance is the rocket provider for Landsat 9s launch.
