Landsat 7 was launched on April 15, 1999 from the Western Test Range at Vandenberg Air Force Base on a Delta-II launch vehicle. At launch, the satellite weighed approximately 4,800 pounds (2,200 kilograms). The spacecraft is about 14 feet long (4.3 meters) and 9 feet (2.8 meters) in diameter. It consists of a spacecraft bus, built by Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space in Valley Forge, Pa., and the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) instrument, developed by Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing in Santa Barbara, Calif.

The satellite orbits the Earth at an altitude of approximately 438 miles (705 kilometers) with a sun-synchronous 98-degree inclination and a descending equatorial crossing time of 10 a.m. Landsat Worldwide Reference System will be maintained with periodic adjustments for the life of the mission. A three-axis attitude control subsystem stabilizes the satellite and keeps the instrument pointed toward Earth to within 0.05 degrees. The Landsat World-Wide-Reference system catalogues the world's landmass into 57,784 scenes, each 115 miles (183 kilometers) wide by 106 miles (170 kilometers) long. The ETM+ will produce approximately 3.8 gigabits of data for each scene, which is roughly equivalent to nearly 15 sets of encyclopedias at 29 volumes per set. You can find more information about the Landsat 7 satellite below:

Picture of Landsat 7 Satellite
Today's Acquisition
Landsat 7 Launch Movie (coming soon)
Where is Landsat 7?

The Landsat Project from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is managed from the Earth Resources Observation Systems (EROS) Data Center.  EROS is the national archive of remotely sensed images of the Earth's land surface.  This data is acquired by civilian satellites and aircraft and used to study a wide range of natural hazards, global environmental change, and economic development and conservation issues.  EROS staff members manage and distribute these data to scientists, policy makers, and educators worldwide.  Click a link below for more information about the EROS Data Center.

EROS Data Center Website
Picture of the EROS Data Center
Background Information
Virtual Tour
Publications