December 22, 2017 - Landsat 8 Maneuver Update

By Landsat Missions

At approximately 5:25 am CST (11:25 UTC) on Thursday, December 21, 2017, the Landsat Flight Operations Team (FOT) successfully performed a retro-burn maneuver to arrest Landsat 8's westward drift across its WRS-2 ground track.

The enhanced westward drift was a result of an emergency Risk Mitigation Maneuver (RMM) that was performed on Saturday, 9 December 2017, to avoid object Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Debris (#29068).

The Landsat 8 FOT have reported the spacecraft has performed as expected, with routine imaging operations of the Operational Land Imager/Thermal Infrared Sensor now resumed.

More information will follow after further engineering results and products are delivered to the FOT.