USGS Assumes Operational Control of Landsat 7
By Karen Wood and Lynn Chandler
From real-time command of the spacecraft to the downloading of spectacular images of the Earth, the USGS has assumed complete responsibility for the mission operations of Landsat 7 from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Taking over those responsibilities fulfills the long-standing assignment for the USGS unit that has been handling the data collection, archiving, and distribution of Earth images for the Landsat program--the Earth Resources Observation Systems (EROS) Data Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
"We are excited about this new opportunity to manage the operational activities of the Landsat 7 program," said R.J. Thompson, the manager for the USGS Landsat program. "Adding this new component to our original mission of collecting, archiving, and distributing Landsat data allows us to fulfill our original goal of completely managing Landsat operations and ensuring the availability of data."
USGS responsibilities now include real-time command in which the flight operations team makes more than a dozen daily contacts with the spacecraft to perform data transfers and general housekeeping activities; uplinking commands which control the spacecraft's activities over the next 36 to 48 hours; assessing the spacecraft's performance; and carrying out preventive maintenance.
"We are extremely pleased that USGS has assumed mission operations responsibility for Landsat 7," said Dr. Darrel Williams, Landsat 7 project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland. The USGS EROS Data Center has served as the nation's archive of Landsat image data for nearly three decades. The Survey's increased involvement in the Landsat program, as mission operators of Landsat 7, was a natural fit."
After the Landsat 7 was launched on April 15, 1999, controllers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center performed daily spacecraft operations. Mission operations will continue to be performed at the Goddard center by contractors under USGS supervision as well as at the USGS EROS Data Center in Sioux Falls. The Landsat Project Office, located at the Goddard center, managed the development, testing, and launch of Landsat 7. The center also was responsible for developing the ground operations system, as well as the ground data handling and processing systems. Landsat 7 is part of a global research program known as NASA's Earth Science Enterprise, a long-term effort that studies changes in the Earth's global environment. The spacecraft also is part of the USGS Gateway to the Earth Program which aims to make all the agency's Earth and natural science information accessible over the World Wide Web.
Landsat 7 has captured more than 200,000 scenes of the Earth from U.S. and foreign ground receiving stations since April 1999, providing stunning detail of the Earth's surface. With 15-meter resolution, the imagery collected by Landsat 7 is far better than what has been provided by previous Landsat sensors.
Landsat 7 is proving to be a major resource for information about the landmass of the planet, and builds on previous satellite data, providing a crucial long-term record of the Earth's land surface. In addition to environmental research, Landsat data is used by customers worldwide in the government, commercial, and educational communities for applications in forestry, agriculture, geology, oceanography, land mapping, and geographic research.
The USGS will continue to carry out its Landsat program management responsibilities in partnership with NASA, which will share its expertise in mission management with staff managed by the USGS and continue to have responsibility for research in the technical characteristics and the potential uses of the data. The USGS will continue to develop efficient means of distributing the data to a worldwide science community.
For more on Landsat 7, visit http://landsat7.usgs.gov/ or http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/on the World Wide Web.