{"id":10955,"date":"2021-09-22T01:28:11","date_gmt":"2021-09-21T17:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/landsat-9-lifted-atop-launcher-to-extend-unbroken-environmental-data-record\/"},"modified":"2021-09-22T01:28:11","modified_gmt":"2021-09-21T17:28:11","slug":"landsat-9-lifted-atop-launcher-to-extend-unbroken-environmental-data-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/landsat-9-lifted-atop-launcher-to-extend-unbroken-environmental-data-record\/","title":{"rendered":"Landsat 9 lifted atop launcher to extend unbroken environmental data record"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
The Landsat 9 Earth observation satellite inside the payload fairing of an Atlas 5 rocket at Vandenberg Space Force Base. Credit: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The next Landsat observatory has been mounted on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket in California for liftoff Sept. 27, continuing an unbroken record of Earth observations to track urban sprawl, water usage, tropical deforestation, retreating glaciers, and more over the last half-century.<\/p>\n

Landsat 9 is the next in a series of land imaging missions launched since 1972, tracking nearly 50 years of city growth, climate change, and trends in use of lands for agriculture and infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are days away from launching our ninth Landsat mission,\u201d said Karen St. Germain, director of NASA\u2019s Earth science division. \u201cThe Landsat program spans nearly 50 years and is a cornerstone of our understanding of Earth\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach satellite in the Landsat program has captured increasingly sophisticated data and imagery documenting Earth\u2019s changing landscapes, and increasing our understanding of the planet on regional, national and global scales,\u201d St. Germain said in a recent press conference on the Landsat 9 mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cLandsat data informs a wide range of decisions related to managing crop health and water resources,\u201d she said. \u201cThese are critical decisions to mitigate global issues like regional famine or food scarcity in an era of accelerating climate change.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis data is essential to global aid agencies, first responders here in the United States, policymakers are every level, major agricultural producers, and individual people, from farmers and ranchers to urban planners,\u201d St. Germain said.<\/p>\n

The Landsat program is a joint effort between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, with NASA responsible for spacecraft development and launch services. The USGS is in charge of ground systems and the Landsat data archive, and will operate the Landsat 9 mission after launch.<\/p>\n

The Landsat 9 satellite is the next in a series of land imaging missions launched since 1972, collecting views from space of urban sprawl, tropical deforestation, retreating glaciers, and changes in coral reefs, crops, and tectonic faults.<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, technicians at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California have loaded propellant into the Landsat 9 spacecraft and closed the satellite inside the nose cone of its Atlas 5 rocket.<\/p>\n

On Sept. 15, teams hoisted the 5,981-pound (2,713-kilogram) Landsat 9 spacecraft on top of the Atlas 5 rocket on Space Launch Complex 3-East at Vandenberg.<\/p>\n

The transfer of Landsat 9 satellite to the launch pad was delayed several days by the liftoff last week of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from a nearby facility at Vandenberg. That forced NASA and ULA officials to delay the launch of Landsat 9 from Sept. 23 to Sept. 27.<\/p>\n

Last month, officials delayed the Landsat 9 launch from an earlier target date of Sept. 16 after problems with the delivery of liquid nitrogen to Vandenberg. Trucks typically used for the nitrogen shipments were repurposed for liquid oxygen transportation to hospitals due to higher demand caused by the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n

Gaseous nitrogen, converted from cryogenic liquid form, is used by ULA in pre-launch testing.<\/p>\n

Last year, NASA said the Landsat 9 launch was delayed from April 2021 to September 2021 after inefficiencies caused by the pandemic slowed assembly and testing of the spacecraft.<\/p>\n

But Landsat 9\u2019s launch is less than a week away now. Liftoff from the SLC-3E launch pad at Vandenberg is scheduled for 11:11 a.m. EDT (2:11 p.m. EDT; 1811 GMT) on Monday, Sept. 27.<\/p>\n

An Atlas 5 rocket, flying in its basic configuration with no solid-fueled boosters, will fly south from Vandenberg over the Pacific Ocean. The Atlas 5\u2019s first stage will shut down its Russian-made RD-180 engine about four minutes into the mission. An Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10 engine on the rocket\u2019s Centaur upper stage will fire for 12 minutes to inject the Landsat 9 satellite into orbit.<\/p>\n

After deployment of Landsat 9, the Centaur stage will reignite its engine two times to maneuver into a different orbit for separation of four small CubeSat rideshare payloads.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Landsat 9 satellite is raised into the mobile gantry at the Atlas 5 rocket\u2019s launch pad in California. Credit: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The newest Landsat satellite, built by Northrop Grumman, will fly around Earth in a polar orbit 438 miles (705 kilometers) above the planet, surveying the globe every 16 days in image swaths 115 miles (185 kilometers) wide.<\/p>\n

Each pixel in the images captured by Landsat 9\u2019s Operational Land Imager 2, or OLI 2, instrument will be about 100 feet (30 meters) across, about the size of a baseball diamond. Landsat 9\u2019s other instrument \u2014 the Thermal Infrared Sensor 2, or TIRS 2 \u2014 can resolve features about 330 feet (100 meters) in size, roughly the length of a football field.<\/p>\n

The $885 million Landsat 9 mission is based on the Landsat 8 satellite, which launched in 2013. The Obama administration directed NASA and the USGS to develop Landsat 9 in 2015, using new copies fo the OLI and TIRS instruments on Landsat 8.<\/p>\n

The Landsat 8 satellite, designed for a five-year lifetime, remains operational. Landsat 8 and 9, working in tandem, will cover all of Earth\u2019s land masses every eight days, according to Jeff Masek, NASA\u2019s project scientist for the Landsat 9 mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis frequency is really critical for assessing change, both for within a single year and between years,\u201d Masek said.<\/p>\n

Landsat 9 will also work in concert with other land imaging satellites, such as the European Sentinel 2 missions, to extend the continuous global coverage of land masses since the launch of Landsat 1 in 1972.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we further add in the data from the similar Sentinel 2A and 2B (satellites), we can get that refresh down to two to three days,\u201d St. Germain said.<\/p>\n

The Landsat data archive catalogs changes in land cover, water quality, glacier flow, and other properties of Earth\u2019s surface, according to NASA. The thermal infrared data from Landsat satellites provide information on irrigation and water usage.<\/p>\n

Scientists and forest managers use Landsat data to measure the impact of wildfires.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to think of Landsat as something like a Swiss Army knife,\u201d Masek said. \u201cOut of one basic set of observations or measurements, we feed a whole range of different Earth science applications.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s key role is to track both human-induced and natural changes to the land environment to better support land management decision-making,\u201d Masek said. \u201cAnd along the way, we\u2019re able to assemble and visualize an amazing history of how the planet has changed over the last half-century.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first Landsat satellite launched in 1972. Here\u2019s a list of the Landsat missions to date:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Landsat 1: <\/strong>Launched July 23, 1972, on a Delta 900 rocket. Operational until January 1978.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Landsat 2: <\/strong>Launched Jan. 22, 1975, on a Delta 2910 rocket. Operational until February 1982.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Landsat 3: <\/strong>Launched March 5, 1978, on a Delta 2910 rocket. Operational until March 1983.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Landsat 4: <\/strong>Launched July 16, 1982, on a Delta 3920 rocket. Operational until 1993.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Landsat 5:<\/strong> Launched March 1, 1984, on a Delta 3920 rocket. Operational until 2013.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Landsat 6: <\/strong>Launched Oct. 5, 1993, on a Titan 2 rocket. Did not reach orbit due to apogee propulsion system failure.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Landsat 7: <\/strong>Launched April 15, 1999, on a Delta 2 rocket. Remains operational.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Landsat 8: <\/strong>Launched Feb. 11, 2013, on an Atlas 5 rocket. Remains operational.<\/p>\n

Landsat satellites have detected changes in the health and coverage of forests, and observed the impacts of climate change of ecosystems around the world. Masek said the Landsat satellites have noticed increased plant cover and melting of ice caps at higher latitudes due to warming temperatures.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can look at the types of crops being grown, we can measure their health, we can look at agricultural productivity,\u201d Masek said. \u201cWe can also use the surface temperature measurements from TIRS, and energy budget models, to measure crop water consumption, which is an important application in the western U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Landsat satellites are focused on land imaging, observations can also track changes in lake sizes, water quality, and help with the early detection of algal blooms, according to Masek.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew applications are emerging all the time, so with the launch of Landsat 9, the user community, the science community, is absolutely looking forward to this launch, and for Landsat 9 to join the Landsat constellation,\u201d Masek said.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Artist\u2019s illustration of the Landsat 9 satellite in orbit. Credit: NASA\/GSFC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NASA says the Landsat archive includes more than 8 million images captured since 1972.<\/p>\n

David Applegate, acting director of the USGS, said the Landsat 8 and 9 satellites will combine to downlink nearly 1,500 images per day for distribution to hundreds of thousands of users around the world, free of charge.<\/p>\n

\u201cMuch like GPS and weather data, Landsat data are used every day to help us better understand our dynamic planet,\u201d Applegate said.<\/p>\n

Like Landsat 8, the new Landsat 9 spacecraft is has a design life of five years, but carries enough fuel to operate for at least a decade.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you put the two satellites side by side, they would look very similar,\u201d said Del Jenstrom, Landsat 9 project manager at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center. \u201cLike Landsat 8, we have two instruments. We have the Thermal Infrared Sensor 2, which we call TIRS 2, which is a two-band thermal imager, and we have the Operational Land Imager 2, OLI 2, which is a nine-band reflective imager with spectral coverage from visible to shortwave infrared.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jenstrom said the new satellites biggest improvement over Landsat 8 was to make changes to the TIRS 2 instrument, built in-house at Goddard. Engineers added more backup components to make the TIRS 2 instrument more reliable, and improved optics inside the sensor to correct an issue with stray light reaching the focal plane.<\/p>\n

Teams on the ground compensated for Landsat 8\u2019s stray light issue with changes to the way they process the imagery, but the underlying problem has been fixed for Landsat 9.<\/p>\n

The OLI 2 instrument, supplied by Ball Aerospace, has two additional imaging bands to detect cirrus clouds and improve images of coastal waters. Jenstrom said the Landsat 9 satellite will downlink 14-bit data from OLI 2, compared with 12-bit data from OLI on Landsat 8, improving sensitivity by about 25%.<\/p>\n

Landsat 9 also flies with a new generation of avionics and software. The satellite is also better shielded against orbital debris impacts and static charge build-up, according to Jenstrom.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Landsat 8 satellite took this image of Cape Cod in Massachusetts in 2015. Credit: USGS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Emerging commercial space capabilities, such as privately-funded Earth-imaging spacecraft, aren\u2019t a replacement for the government-owned Landsat satellites, St. Germain said.<\/p>\n

New commercial startups provide \u201cadditional science\u201d and \u201cadditional observations\u201d for Earth scientists, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t today replicate or replace the kind of data we collect with Landsat, but they generally have complementary strengths and can augment our base of understanding,\u201d St. Germain said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an example, commercial systems, generally they can observe more often, but they generally don\u2019t observe in all the wavelengths we need to do the work we do with Landsat,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd also those commercial systems often rely on systems like Landsat as an anchor for their calibration and stability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Landsat 9 Earth observation satellite inside the payload fairing of an Atlas 5 rocket at Vandenberg Space Force Base. Credit: NASA The next Landsat observatory has been mounted on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket in California for liftoff Sept. 27, continuing an unbroken record of Earth observations to track urban […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10955"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10955\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}