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Every collection of imagery stored at EROS has value, but Landsat plays the starring role for many reasons. The chief one is the 50-plus-year history of satellite missions—from Landsat 1 through today’s near-twin Landsats 8 and 9—continuously mapping Earth along the same polar orbits.

This consistency through time enables our ability to track changes on the Earth’s surface. Reservoirs grow and shrink. Exotic grasses encroach upon sagebrush. Cities expand. Fires and volcanoes scar the landscape, and then we see as seasons change and years go by, the ecosystems recover.

EROS collects and processes satellite data into highly accurate imagery. Scientists at EROS and elsewhere analyze the imagery to help identify, track and predict changes in water, fire, ground cover, infrastructure and more. Governments, first responders, land managers and public and private entities use satellite data to help make land, water and wildlife management decisions every day.

A 2019 study showed Landsat’s economic benefit worldwide totals \$3.45 billion, with more than \$2 billion in the United States alone. Here are just a few of those benefits:

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Before Landsat 1 (then called ERTS 1) launched, EROS staff honed their photo development and interpretation skills with existing federal and state aerial photography. They had plenty of material—in fact, it was decades before Landsat scenes outnumbered aerial shots! And collections kept rolling in over time.

Imagery from airplanes complements Landsat imagery. Since airplanes pre-date satellites, our ability to view land change, both natural and human caused, extends back to 1937 in some places. 

Read on to see examples of how aerial imagery stored at EROS teaches us more about land change, even helping restore an ecosystem on private land. 

During the Cold War, classified military satellite reconnaissance programs codenamed CORONA, ARGON and LANYARD collected imagery of potential geopolitical hotspots in places like the Middle East, Soviet Union and China from 1960-1972. Eventually, the photos were declassified, and EROS received rolls of film from these programs starting in 1996.

Rolls of higher-resolution Gambit/Hexagon declassified photography, acquired 1963-1984, were added to the archive as late as 2019. Almost 60,000 high-resolution declassified images are freely available to download via USGS on EarthExplorer. Because of processing costs, the remainder of the 1.4 million scenes is available by order only. Once ordered, the scans become available in the archive.

Keep scrolling to learn how some researchers have used the declassified images.

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EROS acquires about 1,500 Landsat scenes daily, a reliable, steady flow of data. But the history of our growth is full of surprising jumps and sudden changes, including retrieving millions of scenes from Landsat ground stations around the globe starting in 2010!

Our timeline highlights key additions to the collection. It also shows changes in data storage, data processing, data use and data accessibility—including the transformational decision in 2008 to provide remotely sensed data at no cost. 

The growth of the film archive is not linear. The EROS archive grew by boxes, pallets and truckloads of film. Even Landsat came in with spurts of deliveries—the first two rolls of 70 mm film were hand-carried to EROS via Northwest Airlines.

—Tim Smith, KBR Inc., Information Management Services, contractor to USGS EROS Center

Landsat Next is expected to bring a data avalanche when its three satellites launch in about 2030. Landsat Next will capture a complete picture of the Earth every six days. It will deliver an additional 15 bands of data on top of Landsat's existing 11 bands. 

To be fully prepared for the influx of data, EROS leaders are evaluating storage and processing options on premises and in the cloud.