National Land Imaging Program
Home
Our Nation’s economic security and environmental vitality rely on continuous monitoring of the Earth’s continents, islands, and coastal regions in order to record, study, and understand land change at local, regional, and global scales. The USGS National Land Imaging (NLI) Program helps meet this need.
Image of the Week
Fissures opened on the Cumbre Vieja volcano on Sept. 19, 2021, marking its first eruption since 1971. Our latest video offers Landsat 8's view of the volcanic activity.
La PalmaLandsat 9 Road to Launch
Landsat 9 is a partnership between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey. Learn about the process of building Landsat 9 and how it extends Landsat's unbroken record of our planet to over half a century.
Road to LaunchMore to Explore
Follow these links to learn more about our remote sensing research partnerships, how to access and download data, our image collections, news articles, and more.
National Land Imaging Program Fact Sheet
Landsat Benefits, State By State
2020 Remote Sensing Satellite Compendium
Landsat's LegacyNews
Landsat 9 Galleries: Launch Week
Santa Barbara County, CA, became a hub of Landsat activity in the last week of September 2021. That’s the week Landsat 9 launched into orbit on board an Atlas V rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base.
Reminder: Historic Prototype Viewers to be Decommissioned
As reported on September 17, 2021, the USGS is retiring the original LandsatLook 1.0 (now LandLook) and Sentinel2Look viewers at the end of the work day on Thursday, October 14,...
Landsat 9 Reaches Orbit, Makes Ground Contact to Continue Legacy
Landsat 9 is functioning as expected after its successful launch at 1:12 p.m. CT Monday, Sept. 27, from Vandenberg Space Force Base to join its two predecessors in orbit.
The Earth-observing satellite separated from the Atlas V rocket at 2:34 p.m. and made contact about 80 minutes later with the ground station at Svalbard, Norway.
Publications
South Dakota and Landsat
Few states derive as much of their social and economic well-being from the land as South Dakota. Agriculture is the State’s primary industry. Hunting, fishing, tourism, mining, and hydroelectric power are also important economic and cultural drivers. Data from the U.S. Geological Survey Landsat program, archived at the U.S. Geological Survey Earth...
California and Landsat
California has remarkable geographic diversity, from 1,100 miles of Pacific shoreline to 33 million acres of trees, including its famous redwood forests along the Pacific Coast Highway, U.S. Route 101. And although California’s nickname is “The Golden State," it may also deserve the title of “The Extreme State.” Mount Whitney, the highest peak in...
System characterization of Earth observation sensors
This U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report provides information from assessments of Earth observation sensors completed by the U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Cal/Val Center of Excellence. These reports are provided as independent measures of basic system performance by the Earth Resources Observation and Science...
Ramaseri Chandra, Shankar N.