Eyes on Earth: Landsat

Episode 116 – Landsat Images the Twilight Zone

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Landsat has documented changes all over the world for over 50 years. Changes in polar regions are happening especially rapidly. But it’s dark in polar regions much of the time. Therefore, a new acquisition scheme is adding more imagery of these dark, polar regions so these changes can be studied in more detail, even in polar twilight. In this episode, we learn about this project, called the Landsat Extended Acquisition of the Poles (LEAP).

Guest: Dr. Chris Crawford, USGS Research Physical Scientist

Host: Tom Adamson (contractor for USGS EROS)

Release date: Monday, April 8, 2024

Episode 114 – The Color of Water with Landsat

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Typically, we use Landsat data to study changes on the land—you know, Landsat. In this episode, we learn how satellite images and pixels of water, along with actual water samples, are helpful in determining the productivity of lakes across the United States. We talk with Mendenhall Fellow and Research Geographer Dr. Michael Meyer about a recently released, freely accessible dataset that uses a metric called lake trophic state to validate the Landsat observations of thousands of lakes. The dataset was also named a USGS Open Science Success Story as part of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s 2023 “Year of Open Science” campaign.

Guest: Dr. Michael Meyer, Mendenhall Fellow and Research Geographer, USGS

Host: Tom Adamson (contractor for USGS EROS)

Release date: Monday, March 11, 2024

Episode 111 – Mendenhall Fellow’s Drought Forecasting

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In this episode, we spoke to Mikael Hiestand, a Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellow. Using algorithms developed at EROS, Mikael is working on near-term drought forecasting. With synthetic Landsat data, he found that predicting evapotranspiration could be used as a means of drought prediction and monitoring. The Mendenhall Fellowship allows people who have just completed their PhD an opportunity to work on research with USGS scientists and prepare for their career.

Guest: Mikeal Hiestand, USGS Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Physical Scientist

Host: Tom Adamson (contractor for USGS EROS)

Release date: Monday, January 22, 2024

Episode 108 – Landsat 8’s 100^th Drag Make-Up Maneuver

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The Landsat Program is considered the gold standard for satellite Earth-observation imagery. To keep it that way, the USGS EROS Flight Operations Team continually monitors the flight paths of the Landsat satellites to make sure they stay at a consistent 705-kilometer altitude. That means frequently speeding it up to counter the effects of atmospheric drag. But that’s not all. The team accounts for solar activity, space junk, and other factors to keep the satellites safe. Landsat 8’s 100^th Drag Make-Up maneuver in October 2023 gives us the opportunity, in this episode, to talk about these and the other maneuvers the flight team executes and how they work.

Guest: Larry Tornabene, Flight Systems Manager for Landsat 8

Host: Tom Adamson (contractor for USGS EROS)

Release date: Monday, November 20, 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), in which our 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 96 – Generational Science

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In this episode, we talk with Peder Nelson about generational science and the responsibility we have to future generations to study our changing planet. It takes more than just data to make sense of land change. And while remote sensing scientists work with the deep archive of Landsat and other land data available from the USGS EROS Center, everyone can put themselves on the timeline of Landsat data. Citizen science projects allow anyone to participate in the observations that help us understand the world around us. 

Guest: Peder Nelson, Oregon State University

Host: Tom Adamson (contractor for USGS EROS)

Release date: Tuesday, June 20, 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 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 how the Landsat 5 flight operations team managed to keep the satellite going as it collected data into its 20s and an award the team recently received. Designed to last three years, Landsat 5 launched in 1984 and transmitted data until the launch of Landsat 8 in 2013. 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. 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: Monday, January 23, 2023

Episode 87 – Landsat 5’s Significance, Part 1

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In this episode, we learn about the significance of the fifth satellite in the 50-year-old Landsat program and its remarkable ability to observe the Earth for nearly 29 years. Designed to last three years, Landsat 5 launched in 1984 and transmitted data until the launch of Landsat 8 in 2013. 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: Monday, January 9, 2023

Episode 85 – Landsat 7 Extended Science Mission 

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In this episode, we learn more about Landsat 7’s extended science mission and the resulting circumstance of collecting data from three Landsat satellites. Landsat 7’s nominal science mission ended in April 2022 after nearly 23 years of acquiring Earth imagery from 705 kilometers above the Earth. Landsat 7 is now in an extended science mission after having its orbit lowered by about 8 kilometers to make way for Landsat 9. In this episode, we discuss why Landsat 7 continues to collect imagery, the quality of the extended science mission imagery, and the advantages of having three Landsats operating at the same time.

Guest: Chris Crawford, USGS Research Physical Scientist, Landsat Project Scientist, Co-chair of the Landsat Science Team, Landsat Science Data Acquisition Manager

Host: Tom Adamson

Release date: Monday, December 5, 2022

Episode 79 – Landsat Global Archive Consolidation 

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In this episode, we learn about the process that has gradually added millions of earlier Landsat scenes to the 50-year archive. 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 of Eyes on Earth, 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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In this episode, we look back at how past guests viewed the value of Landsat satellites and their 50-year history. 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 74 – A Satellite Cross Calibration Mission

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In this episode, we hear how a new mission will make it easier to use satellite datasets interchangeably. When the first Landsat satellite launched 50 years ago, it was the only game in town in terms of civilian land remote sensing. In the years that followed, a host of satellites have launched to serve similar purposes. But that data doesn't always play well together. Subtle differences between the measurements taken by satellites make it difficult to do apples to apples comparisons of land change.

On this episode of Eyes on Earth, we hear from the USGS partners working with partners in Australia to launch a satellite cross calibration mission that will offer a common reference post and serve as a sort of “translation tool” to help remote sensing scientists to use datasets together to study changes to the Earth’s surface.

Guests: Greg Stensaas, USGS EROS, Grant Mah, USGS EROS, Jon Christopherson, USGS EROS contractor

Host: John Hult

Release date: May 31, 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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In this episode, we hear interviews with international partners on the day of the Landsat 9 launch. 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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In this episode, we hear interviews with some of the various agency officials gathered before the Landsat 9 launch. 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