NASA transferred ownership and operational control of the Landsat 9 satellite to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in a ceremony in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

NASA Transfers Landsat 9 Satellite to USGS – Provides Global Coverage of Landscape Changes on Earth

Landsat 9 is the newest in the Landsat series of remote-sensing satellites, which provide global coverage of landscape changes on Earth. The Landsat program – a joint effort between NASA and USGS – is a long-running project that recently marked 50 years of continuous service on July 23. “For more than fifty years now, Landsat satellites have helped us learn more about how Earth systems work, how human activities affect those systems, and how we can make better decisions for the future,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “Landsat 9, the latest joint effort by NASA and USGS, proudly carries on that remarkable record.” NASA launched Landsat 9 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on September 27, 2021. Since then, NASA mission engineers and scientists, with USGS collaboration, have been putting the satellite through its paces. This included steering it into its orbit, calibrating the detectors, and collecting test images. Now fully mission-certified, the satellite is under USGS operational control for the remainder of its mission life.

Our partnership with NASA over many years has been good for science and good for the American people,” said Assistant Secretary for Water and Science Tanya Trujillo. “A half-century archive of Landsat’s Earth observations is a magnificent achievement in the history of science. This fifty-year record gives scientists a consistent baseline that can be used to track climate change and enables them to see changes to the land that might not otherwise be noticed.” Landsat 9 joined Landsat 8, which has been orbiting since 2013. Together, the two satellites collect images of Earth’s full surface every eight days. An average of 740 Landsat 9 scenes are collected by USGS specialists every day from around the world to be processed and archived at the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science Center in Sioux Falls.

Source: This new is originally published by scitechdaily

By Web Team

Technology Times Web team handles all matters relevant to website posting and management.