Images

USGS provides remote sensing science training for visitors in 1979.

Captured with an Olympus Digital Camera.

USGS provides remote sensing science training for visitors. This image shows visitors seeing Mount Rushmore.

USGS EROS provides remote sensing science training for visitors in 1979. This is a man using a stereoscope to look at satellite images.

One of Landsat 3’s first images, captured by the Multispectral Scanner (MSS) 4 days after launch, features a slice of Northern California on March 7, 1978. San Jose sits in Santa Clara Valley touching the southernmost portion of San Francisco. This image showcases the urbanization of the valley, which exploded in the 1970s as Silicon Valley grew.

In-house data processing systems at USGS EROS, shown here in 1976, supported research based on aerial photography and satellite data. 

The Multispectral Scanner (MSS) onboard the Landsat 2 satellite captured the data used to create this color infrared image on May 15,1975. Chesapeake Bay leads up the image to Baltimore, Maryland, and the Potomac River leads west and north up to Washington, DC. 

Landsat 2’s first light image captured Drayton Valley in Alberta, Canada on January 24, 1975. Located along Canadian Highway 22, also known as Cowboy Trail, the town’s original economy thrived on faming and logging. The discovery of the Pembina oil field in 1953 contributed to explosive growth in the sparsely populated area, w

Example of the Landsat 1-5 MSS Collection 2 level-1 product. This Landsat 1 image was acquired on June 26, 1974 near Fallon, Nevada and is shown as a false color composite using the near-infrared, red, and green bands (bands 3,2,1).

This false-color image, captured by Landsat 1 on February 13, 1974, shows the landscape around Shanghai and the Yangtze River Delta. Using bands 7 (near-infrared), 6 (red), and 5 (green), the image highlights water in dark blue, sediment-laden channels in lighter shades of blue, and vegetation in shades of yellow and green. 

Landsat 2’s first light image features a slice of Alberta, Canada, captured on January 24, 1975 on Path 047 Row 023. This false color images uses two near infrared bands and the red band (Bands 7,6,5).

Learn more about Landsat 2 by visiting the Landsat 2 Mission Web Page

A HEXAGON satellite image from the Quang Tri province of Vietnam shows numerous bomb craters. Declassified in 2011, HEXAGON, also named KH-9, provided imagery from 1971 to 1984. This image was acquired on March 20, 1973.

This Landsat 1 image, acquired on January 13, 1973, offers one of the earliest satellite perspectives of Antarctica’s Ross Island and McMurdo Sound. Captured using the Multispectral Scanner’s (MSS) near-infrared, red, and green bands (6, 5, 4), the image highlights the region's glaciated terrain, floating sea ice, and volcanic peaks.

An artist's rendering of the pioneering Earth observation satellite that launched the Landsat program, providing critical data for monitoring land cover and environmental changes since 1972.

Learn more about the Landsat Mission

This early Landsat 1 image, acquired on July 31, 1972, captures the Kennicott, Nabesna, and Barnard Glaciers in southeastern Alaska—just a week after the satellite’s launch. Using bands 6, 5, and 4, the image reveals glacial ice, rugged mountain terrain, and braided rivers within the Wrangell–St. Elias region.

Within days of the launch, Landsat 1 acquired an image of an astounding 81,000-acre (327.8 square kilometers) fire burning in isolated, central Alaska. For the first time ever, scientists and resource management officials were able to see the full extent of damage from a fire in a single image while it was still burning.

The very first image in the Landsat archive is the MSS image above, showing the Dallas - Fort Worth area of Texas on July 25, 1972. The resolution is 60 meters per pixel in this false-color image, where shades of red indicate vegetated land and grays and whites are urban or rocky surfaces.

Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, slid into Landsat 1's view on July 25, 1972. In this false-color image, shades of red indicate vegetated land and grays and whites are urban or rocky surfaces. The composite image is shown using the near-infrared, red and green bands (bands 7, 5, 4) at a 60 meter resolution.

A Delta rocket containing Landsat 1, then called Earth Resources Technology Satellite, or ERTS, sits on the launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in July 1972. NASA photo

A view of the Forbidden City in Beijing, China, from declassified satellite imagery stored in the archive at the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center.

Pecora, a geologist, served as director of the U.S. Geological Survey from 1965 to 1971 and as under secretary of the Department of the Interior from 1971 until his death in 1972. Pecora advocated for the potential of remote sensing for Earth observation and led the development of the Earth Resources Observation Systems program in 1966.

An GAMBIT satellite image of Yucca Flat in Nevada, circa 1965.