Images

In a September 21, 1966 press release, Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall announced that the DOI was launching "Project EROS (Earth Resources Observation Satellites)." Udall's vision was to observe the Earth for the benefit of all. 

The numbers on this map indicate the number of commercial and government/civil Earth observing satellites launched by the highlighted countries. This image is updated quarterly.

Visit the Earth Observing Satellites webpage to learn more. 

This chart shows the number of commercial and government/civil satellites launched each year since 1972.  This information is updated quarterly. 

Visit the Earth Observing Satellites webpage to learn more.

JACIE 2026 Workshop Save the Date

Visit the JACIE 2026 Workshop webpage to keep up with information about the April 2026 meeting.

This image shows the spectral bandpasses for the sensors on all Landsat satellites. 

This picture is the site of the Big Multi-Agency Campaign (BigMAC), a comprehensive field exercise aimed at assessing current technologies that might be used for validation of surface products derived from satellite imagery, The exercise was held in Brookings, South Dakota in August 2021. 

The JACIE 2025 Workshop in-person attendees are shown in this picture. The Workshop was held April 7-11, 2025. 

This Spatial Resolution Digital Imagery Guideline was developed by Innovative and Imaging Research (I2R) for the USGS. This guide demonstrates how certain image specification parameters affect spatial resolution.

The attendees of the Landsat Ground Station Operators Working Group (LGSOWG) #52 meeting in Canberra, Australia in November 2024. 

Visit this USGS webpage to learn more about LGSOWG #52. 

The JACIE 2025 Workshop will be held April 7-11, 2025 at USGS Headquarters in Reston, Virginia.  This graphic displays the deadlines for the workshop components. 

Visit the JACIE 2025 Workshop webpage to learn more about the workshop. 

JACIE 2025 will be held April 7 - 11, 2025 at USGS Headquarters in Reston, Virginia. 

Annual JACIE Workshops are sponsored by government agencies and allow remote sensing experts to discuss system capabilities, calibration, and the impacts of data quality on various applications. 

Highlights of JACIE Workshops include:

The Railroad Valley Playa, located in east central Nevada, measures about 80 miles long and nearly 20 miles wide, and is a vast and wide-open landscape. 

South Dakota is home to the fabled “Black Hills.” Seen from a distance, these pine-covered hills, rising several thousand feet above the surrounding prairie, appear black.

The Operational Land Imager (OLI) onboard the Landsat 9 satellite captured this image of the White Sands National Park on May 13, 2024.  

The Ivanpah Playa test site is a dry lakebed located in the Mohave Desert along the border of California and Nevada.

The Baotou Sand Test Site was established to assess the radiometric and spectral performance of high spatial resolution sensor payloads on airborne and satellite platforms. Located at Urad Qianqi, Inner Mongolia in northern China, the site is ∼1270 meters (m) above sea level. The site

The EROS Calibration/Validation (Cal/Val) Center of Excellence (ECCOE) compares Landsat and other remotely sensed data to known reference points on the ground to ensure consistency - a process called calibration and validation.

This JACIE 2022 Preliminary Agenda Preview displays the intended sessions and presentations at the JACIE 2022 Workshop. Visit this Upcoming Workshops webpage for more information about JACIE 2022.

This image displays the agencies involved in Joint Agency Commercial Imagery Evaluation (JACIE). 

This Uncrewed Aerial System Composite Image is an example of 3-dimensional data capture technology. 

This Lidar scan shows the South Dakota Capitol Building in Pierre, South Dakota. 

The EROS Cal/Val Center of Excellence (ECCOE) provides system and data quality research in support of the USGS National 3D Elevation Program.