USGS Landsat Ground Stations
United States ground stations in South Dakota and Alaska, as well as international ground stations in Norway, Germany, and Australia, serve as the primary data capture and Telemetry, Tracking, and Control (TT&C) facilities for the USGS Landsat satellite missions.
Landsat 8 and 9 Operations
The Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 USGS Ground Network is comprised of five ground receiving stations:
- Sioux Falls, South Dakota
- Alice Springs, Australia
- Neustrelitz, Germany
- Gilmore Creek, Alaska
- Svalbard, Norway
These stations are responsible for downlinking the satellite telemetry (via S-band Radio Frequency (RF) link) and science data (via X-band RF link) that feeds the USGS Landsat data archive. The stations can also uplink commands to the satellite. The X-band is used to transmit both real-time and recorded Landsat data, which are then transferred from the stations as Mission Data to the Data Processing and Archive System (DPAS) located at the USGS EROS Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Additionally, each station supports the routing of S-band uplink communications to the Observatory and the routing of downlink telemetry spacecraft health and safety monitoring communications to the Mission Operations Center (MOC) located at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland. The NASA Tracking Data and Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) provides housekeeping support for the Landsat satellites.
Visit the Landsat International Ground Station Network webpage to learn more about each of these Landsat Ground Network stations.
