What is a Landsat satellite constellation?

Landsat data products held in the USGS archives can be searched and downloaded at no charge from a variety of sources. Visit Landsat Data Access for information about how Landsat data products can be downloaded individually or in bulk. Landsat imagery not found in the USGS archive might have been collected by one of the USGS International Cooperator ground stations, each of which are the primary...

There are several Landsat Collection 2 products that are useful for science applications and land use/land change studies: Landsat Level-1 Products - Each Level-1 product includes individual spectral band files, a metadata file, and additional ancillary files. Level-1 products are available for all global landmasses. Landsat U.S. Analysis Ready Data (ARD) - U.S. ARD uses Landsat Level-1 data as...

Landsat descending (daytime) acquisitions run from north to south; the satellites cross the equator at 10:12 a.m., +/- 5 minutes, local time on each pass. This timing provides the best sunlight for capturing images. The acquisition start and end times for each image are listed in the metadata file included with the Landsat Level-1 product. These times also appear on EarthExplorer and  GloVis...

Landsat 8 and  Landsat 9 orbit Earth at an altitude of 705 kilometers, or 438 miles. Each satellite captures images across a 185-kilometer, or 115-mile, swath. The satellites move from north to south over the sunlight side of Earth in a sun-synchronous orbit. Each satellite circles Earth every 99 minutes and completes about 14 orbits a day – and passes over the same location once every 16 days...

The Landsat Program is a series of Earth-observing satellite missions jointly managed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey. On July 23, 1972, in cooperation with NASA, the Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS-1) was launched. It was later renamed Landsat 1. Additional Landsat satellites have launched to bring the world an archive of remote sensing data. Currently orbiting and active...