Eyes on Earth: History

Episode 112 – Landsat in Popular Media

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In this episode, we aim to separate science fiction from science fact when it comes to how Landsat satellites and the EROS Center are portrayed in popular media. To do that, we consulted experts on a range of potential uses, including military, heat signatures, paleontology, and forests.

Guests: Keith Masback, Landsat Advisory Group; Ron Risty, EROS alumnus; George Xian, EROS research physical scientist; Robert Anemone, professor at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro; and Chris Barber, EROS research physical scientist 

Hosts: Sheri Levisay and Jane Lawson (contractors for USGS EROS)

Release date: Monday, February 5, 2024

Episode 107 – EROS 50^th: Land Cover, Part 2

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The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) has a long history as the definitive U.S. land cover product. But the newer Land Change Monitoring, Assessment and Projection (LCMAP) effort takes a longer look back in time. In this episode, we learn how the two projects at EROS, both based on 30-meter resolution Landsat satellite data, are merging to bring the strengths of each to future data releases under the NLCD name. This is the second of two episodes discussing land cover work at EROS, with the first focused on earlier pioneering efforts.

Guests: Terry Sohl, Research Physical Scientist at USGS EROS, and Jon Dewitz, Physical Scientist at USGS EROS

Host: Jane Lawson (contractor for USGS EROS)

Release date: Monday, November 13, 2023

Episode 106 – EROS 50^th: Land Cover, Part 1

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Several decades ago, EROS employees were pioneers in land cover mapping—turning satellite imagery into a record of what covers the land, from farmland to forest to urban areas. National and global datasets with a variety of uses resulted from these efforts. In this episode, we explore some of this history, along with how it benefited people at the time and the mapping efforts that would follow. Our next episode will look at two modern efforts at EROS, NLCD and LCMAP, and how their strengths are merging for the next generation of land cover and change products.

Guest: Jesslyn Brown, longtime research geographer at USGS EROS

Host: Jane Lawson (contractor for USGS EROS)

Release date: Monday, October 30, 2023

Episode 104 – EROS 50^th: Alumni and Friends, Part 2

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At the USGS EROS 50^th anniversary events August 17-19, 2023, a special effort was made to include alumni who had worked at the center, especially those from the earliest years of EROS’ existence. This episode highlights their stories, with emphasis on science, technology and EROS’ international outlook.

Guests: Ron Beck, Ron Risty, Jeff Eidenshink, Bruce Millett, Dave Greenlee, Darrell Napton, Curtis Woodcock and Jim Irons

Host: Sheri Levisay (contractor for USGS EROS)

Release date: Monday, September 25, 2023

Episode 103 – EROS 50^th: Alumni and Friends, Part 1

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At the USGS EROS 50^th anniversary events August 17-19, 2023, a special effort was made to include alumni who had worked at the center, especially those from the earliest years of EROS’ existence. This episode of Eyes on Earth highlights their stories, with emphasis on EROS’ history and its dedicated employees.

Guests: Dave Greenlee, Tom Earley, Charles Luden, Ron Beck, Rhonda Watkins, Chris McGinty, Mary O’Neill, John Faundeen and Frank Kelly

Host: Sheri Levisay (contractor for USGS EROS)

Release date: Monday, September 18, 2023

Episode 101 – EROS 50^th: Director Pete Doucette Looks Ahead

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EROS Center Director Pete Doucette has been at EROS for a fairly short stretch of the center’s 50-year history, but his passion for the mission of EROS and its opportunities in the future are clear in this episode. He shares the historic event he would have enjoyed being part of in the past, and he gives insights about remote sensing work at EROS going forward.

Guest: Pete Doucette, EROS Center Director

Host: Jane Lawson (contractor for USGS EROS)

Release date: Monday, August 14, 2023

Episode 100 – EROS 50^th: Our Legacy

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As USGS EROS turns 50 this month, our podcast also marks a big moment: Episode 100. To celebrate, we bring together some treasured moments from previous episodes in which people inside and outside of EROS share their thoughts on EROS and its role in the world of remote sensing, including as keeper of all Landsat satellite data.

Guests: Tom Loveland, Mike O’Brien, Greg Stensaas, Mike Budde, Chris Funk, Kristi Kline, Barb Ryan, Curtis Woodcock, Chris Barber, Dennis Helder, Francis Dwomoh, Roger Auch, Heather Tollerud, Todd Taylor, Volker Radeloff, Mary O’Neill, Steve Covington, Zhe Zhu, Ann Tripp, Jon Christopherson

Host: Tom Adamson (contractor for USGS EROS)

Release date: Monday, August 7, 2023

Episode 99 – EROS 50^th: Interns Who Stayed

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EROS has a long history of reaching out to universities to welcome interns who can both contribute to the center and gain valuable skills and experience. A good number of them went on to spend their careers at EROS, some for more than three decades. In this episode, these interns who stayed emphasized above all the mission—observing Earth remotely, recording the changes and applying those to science—as their motivation for remaining at EROS. However, all of them also mentioned another key word that inspired them to stay: camaraderie.

Guests: Jesslyn Brown, Susan Embrock, Kristi Sayler, Roger Auch

Host: Sheri Levisay (contractor for USGS EROS)

Producer: Tom Adamson (contractor for USGS EROS)

Release date: Monday, July 31, 2023

Episode 98 – EROS 50^th: Conservation

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In this episode, we talk about the 50-year history of EROS efforts to preserve the environment and conserve energy. EROS was born in the ’70s, the same decade as Earth Day, the EPA, and the oil crisis. Environmentally conscious decisions implemented by both the EROS Center and the employee association include reclaiming silver from photo processing, using solar panels to heat the water needed for that process, and starting a vanpool.

Guests: Brent Nelson, Information and Management Services Operations Work Manager and contractor for USGS EROS; Tim Smith Information Management Services Archive Task Lead and contractor for USGS EROS; and Tracy Michel, USGS Safety and Occupational Health Specialist

Host: Sheri Levisay (contractor for USGS EROS)

Release date: Monday, July 17, 2023

Episode 97 – EROS 50^th: Earth As Art

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Satellites capture an incredible variety of views of Earth. In this episode, we talk with the three engineers at USGS EROS who started the USGS Earth As Art project. The Earth As Art origin story is an example of the initiative and creativity of EROS staff. This stunningly visual product grabs the public’s attention—and then leads to conversations about the value of remote sensing with satellites.

*Be sure to listen to the bonus material (second audio file below), where the guests talk about their favorite Earth As Art images.

Guests: Jon Christopherson, Principal System Engineer, contractor for USGS EROS; Ron Hayes, Digital Data Technical Lead, contractor for USGS EROS; Pat Scaramuzza, Senior Scientist, contractor for USGS EROS

Host: Tom Adamson (contractor for USGS EROS)

Release date: Monday, July 3, 2023

Episode 95 – EROS 50^th: Landsat Science Team

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The members of the five-year Landsat Science Teams, led jointly by the USGS and NASA with a strong tie to EROS, have brought a wide breadth of expertise, backgrounds and geographic locations to the table. In this episode, we learn how members have explored strategies for the effective use of archived Landsat data and integration of future data, and how they have helped identify Landsat user needs for upcoming satellite sensors, including those on the future Landsat Next.  

Guests: Curtis Woodcock, Boston University and 4 terms on Landsat Science Team; Mike Wulder, Canadian Forest Service and 3 terms on Landsat Science Team; David Roy, Michigan State University professor and 2 terms on Landsat Science Team

Host: Jane Lawson (contractor for USGS EROS)

Release date: Wednesday, June 7, 2023

Episode 94 – EROS 50^th: Collaborations with SDSU

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South Dakota State University opened its Remote Sensing Institute even before the launch of Landsat 1 and the selection of South Dakota as the location for EROS. In this episode, we talk about some of the collaborations that SDSU and EROS have both benefited from, including research projects centered on Landsat and other data sources, instrument calibration and validation, and trainings, presentations and workshops. SDSU faculty and EROS staff have ventured back and forth, and SDSU students have worked as interns and found employment at EROS.

Guests: Mary O’Neill, former program manager of SDSU’s Office of Remote Sensing and outgoing AmericaView board director, and Dennis Helder, founder of SDSU’s Image Processing Lab, former head of the Electrical Engineering Department and current part-time technical adviser and contractor at EROS

Host: Jane Lawson (contractor for USGS EROS)

Producer: Tom Adamson (contractor for USGS EROS)

Release date: Wednesday, May 24, 2023

Episode 93 – EROS 50^th: Film Scanning

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Working with film has always been part of EROS’ 50-year history. How did EROS end up with an extensive film archive, and how are we making that data available to users? In this episode, we talk about the custom scanners built in-house from discarded parts to digitally capture historical aerial photos and declassified spy satellite images. These Phoenix systems have scanned millions of images and still have a lot of work to do.

Guests: Tim Smith and Mike Austad (contractors for USGS EROS)

Host: Tom Adamson (contractor for USGS EROS)

Release date: Monday, April 3, 2023

Episode 92 – EROS 50^th: The Library and Science Support

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The Don Lee Kulow Library has been supporting scientific research at EROS since before the facility opened its doors in 1973. In this episode, librarian Carol Deering explains how, rather than becoming obsolete with the advent of instant access to online journals, libraries are even more crucial for the discovery of previous studies and for gauging the reach and real-world effects of research done by EROS scientists. She also talks about the history of EROS and describes a one-time quest for documents that stretched from UC Berkeley to the Library of Congress to Australia and Kenya.

Guest: Carol Deering, Librarian at the Don Lee Kulow Memorial Library at USGS EROS

Host: Sheri Levisay

Release date: Monday, March 20, 2023

Episode 90 – Landsat 8 Turns 10

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Originally called the Landsat Data Continuity Mission, Landsat 8 launched on February 11, 2013. In this episode of Eyes on Earth, we talk about the 10^th anniversary of Landsat 8 being in orbit and its value to the remote sensing community. While we cannot predict the future, it does look promising that Landsat 8 can sustain that continuity for more years to come.

Guest: Keith Alberts, Acting Landsat Flight Operations Project Manager, EROS

Host: Tom Adamson

Release date: Tuesday, February 21, 2023

Episode 88 – Landsat 5’s Significance, Part 2

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In this episode, we learn about some of the challenges—and adrenaline rushes—Landsat 5 gave the flight operations team as it aged, as well as the fondness our two guests came to have for the satellite’s unique personality and the whole team as they served on it during the satellite’s twilight years. Designed to last three years, Landsat 5 launched in 1984 and transmitted data until the launch of Landsat 8 in 2013. In October 2022, the Flight Operations Team won the 2020 Group Pecora Award during the 22^nd William T. Pecora Memorial Remote Sensing Symposium.

Guests: Steve Covington, former Landsat 5 flight manager, now Aerospace Corp. contractor serving as the principal systems engineer for the USGS National Land Imaging Program; and Jeff Devine, former Landsat 5 lead operations engineer, now KBR contractor leading the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope Flight Operations Team at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Host: Jane Lawson

Release date: January 23, 2023

Episode 87 – Landsat 5’s Significance, Part 1

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In this episode, we learn about the significance of this satellite, which set a Guinness World Record for “Longest Operating Earth Observation Satellite.” Our two guests served on the flight operations team in the satellite’s twilight years and describe its importance to the unbroken record of Landsat data. They also share their personal connections with the satellite—including a journey from watching the launch on a monitor at EROS to eventually leading the team.

Guests: Steve Covington, former Landsat 5 flight manager, now Aerospace Corp. contractor serving as the principal systems engineer for the USGS National Land Imaging Program; and Jeff Devine, former Landsat 5 lead operations engineer, now KBR contractor leading the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope Flight Operations Team at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Host: Jane Lawson

Release date: January 9, 2023

Episode 79 – Landsat Global Archive Consolidation

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The Landsat archive at EROS contains an unparalleled 50 years of Earth observation data. But with earlier technologies, some Landsat scenes were collected and stored only by international ground receiving stations rather than in the central archive at EROS. More than 10 years ago, to help make that far-flung data available to scientists interested in land change over time, the Landsat Global Archive Consolidation (LGAC) project began having the reels and tapes sent to EROS to digitize that information. In this episode, we learn how that project has deepened the archive dramatically.

Guests: Todd Taylor, EROS contract task lead for Sustaining Land Imaging partnership support, and contractor Jayson Holter, EROS task manager for the Landsat Missions Operations Project, Ground Operations

Host: Tom Adamson

Release date: August 29, 2022

Episode 78 – Landsat 50 Lookback 

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Government officials and scientists had high hopes for Landsat when the first experimental satellite launched July 23, 1972. Those hopes were soon realized when imagery came back depicting features never before seen. Since then, an archive of imagery surpassing 10 million scenes has amassed at EROS, collected from eight different Landsat satellites. Agencies, scientists, researchers, and data analysts use Landsat in a variety of ways to learn more about our planet, preserve its resources, and benefit its people. On this episode of Eyes on Earth, we spotlight how several guests from past Eyes on Earth episodes value the Landsat imagery and archive, from forests and fires to lakes and cities.

Guests: Bob Schuchman of the Michigan Tech Research Institute, Sara Hart of Colorado State University, Rob Skakun of Natural Resources Canada, Andres Espejo of the World Bank, James Cottone on the New York City Council staff, Christian Braneon of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Frank Fay of the USDA Forest Service, former EROS Science Branch Chief John Dwyer

Host: John Hult

Release date: July 25, 2022

Episode 62 – Landsat 9 Launch Part 3 

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In this episode, we hear from a pioneer in remote sensing. For our third and final episode of Eyes on Earth from the September launch of Landsat 9, we hear from Virginia Norwood. She blazed a trail for women in remote sensing in the 1960s and 70s while working for Hughes Aircraft, a contractor for NASA. Norwood is known as the “Mother of Landsat” for her design of the Multispectral Scanner, or MSS, the sensor used to image the Earth’s surface by early Landsat satellites. Norwood met her fans during a Q&A a few hours after the launch sponsored by the USGS and Ladies of Landsat. The episode also features an appearance from Kass Green, who founded a company in the 1980s that used Landsat data to map landscape change.

Guests: Virginia Norwood, physicist, Kass Green, Kass Green and Associates

Hosts: John Hult, Kate Fickas

Release date: November 30, 2021

Episode 61 – Landsat 9 Launch Part 2 

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Hundreds of scientists, officials, international representatives, and others witnessed the launch of Landsat 9 on September 27, 2021, from a handful of viewing sites around Santa Barbara County, California. Their interests were as varied as their backgrounds, but the new satellite’s extension of the Landsat program’s invaluable 50-year record of Earth observations was top of mind for the international partners who help the USGS collect Landsat data and the scientists who rely on those data to monitor the health of the planet. In this episode of Eyes on Earth, we talk with guests from around the world about their role in the Landsat program, and the importance of the program to their work.

Guests: Andres Espejo, Senior Forest Carbon Specialist, World Bank; Naikoa Aguilar-Amuchasegui, Senior Director of Forest Carbon Science and MRV Lead, World Wildlife Fund; Ann Bray, Minister-Counsellor for Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, Australian Embassy; Marc Jochemich, Head of Washington, D.C. office, German Aerospace Center

Host: John Hult

Release date: November 15, 2021

Episode 60 – Landsat 9 Launch Part 1

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Landsat 9 launched into orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Monday, September 27, 2021, to carry on the legacy of a nearly 50-year record of continuous Earth observation that began in 1972. The days leading up to the event saw guests from around the world descend upon Santa Barbara County in California to watch the historic event take place. Over the next few weeks, we’ll bring you some of the interviews we collected with scientists, government officials and Mission partners. This episode of Eyes on Earth focuses on the day before the launch, when we spoke about the importance of the Landsat program with guests at the launchpad and a Landsat for Climate event.

Guests: Tanya Trujillo, Department of Interior Assistant Secretary for Water and Science; Tony Willardson, Director of the Western States Water Council; Joaquin Esquivel, Chair of the California Water Resources Control Board; Kevin Gallagher, Associate Director of USGS Core Science Systems

Host: John Hult

Release date: October 13, 2021

Episode 59 – Landsat 9 Ground System

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The launch of Landsat 9 in September of 2021 represents a milestone for a joint USGS/NASA program that stretches back nearly 50 years. Landsat 9 will continue the legacy of unbroken, repeat Earth observations and contribute to our understanding of a changing planet. The primary USGS roles for Landsat satellites, which are built and launched by NASA, are to operate the ground system, process and archive the data, and distribute it to users around the world. On this episode of Eyes on Earth, we hear from two people who’ve been involved in the development of the Landsat 9 ground system to learn what it takes to bring Landsat data to the Earth and transform it into the data products and imagery we all recognize.

Guests: Kari Wulf, Aerospace Corp, Landsat 9 mission integration lead and ground system manager, Mike O’Brien, contractor and ground system engineer

Host: John Hult

Release date: Sept. 20, 2021

Episode 53 - Remapping Canada's Fire History

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Mapping fire perimeters is important work. It guides post-fire restoration efforts, fire mitigation strategies, and helps track of trends in burn severity over time. In the past, many of Canada’s fire agencies relied heavily on techniques like sketch mapping, which estimate burned area without exact measurements. In the pre-satellite era, pilots would sometimes fly over the edge of a fire while a passenger recorded its extent. On this episode of Eyes on Earth, we hear about what two researchers from Natural Resources Canada learned when they used Landsat satellite data to rebuild historical fire perimeters. 

Guest:  Ellen Whitman and Rob Skakun, Natural Resources Canada

Host: John Hult

Release date: June 28, 2021

Episode 31 – Landsat 7 Flight Operations

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Just recently, in mid-July, the flight operations team charged with keeping the Landsat 7 satellite running smoothly achieved a major milestone. They have gone 8 straight years now without an operator error. Considering that the team is operating a machine that costs hundreds of millions of dollars and flies at more than 17,000 miles per hour, avoiding any kind or operator error for 8 years is a reason to celebrate. In this episode of Eyes on Earth, we hear from the supervisor of the team behind the incredible flight operations run.

Guests: Guy Thayer, Aerospace Corporation

Host: Steve Young

Release date: August 10, 2020

Episode 19 – 100 Million Landsat Downloads

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For decades, each Landsat image had a price tag – a hefty one at times ranging from 400 dollars to as much as 4,000 dollars. That all changed in 2008 with the enactment of an open data policy that made the entire Landsat archive available for download at no cost to the user. In this episode of Eyes on Earth, we talk with one of the architects of that policy, as well as an EROS data manager who saw the post-2008 spike in Landsat data use in real time. The 100 millionth Landsat scene was recently downloaded from the EROS archive, marking a major milestone for a policy shift that opened the door to previously impossible wide-scale research projects and generated billions of dollars in returns worldwide.

Guests: Barb Ryan, former Secretariat-Director for the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and former Associate Director of Geography for USGS; Kristi Kline, Project Manager for the Landsat Archive.

Host: Steve Young

Release date: March 13, 2020

Episode 5 - Declassified Data at EROS

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In this episode, we learn how declassified satellite data helps scientists study the past. There’s a lot more than Landsat in the EROS Archive. In this episode of Eyes on Earth, we hear from a professor who’s mined satellite data collected during once-classified military missions to peer into the history of land use in Eastern Europe during the height of the Cold War.

Guest: Volker Radeloff, professor in the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison

Host: Steve Young

Release date: Oct. 7, 2019