Landsat 9

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Spacecraft and Launch Components:

• Spacecraft Provider: Northrop Grumman
• Spacecraft Bus: Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems  (formerly Orbital ATK)
• Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Atlas V 401
• Spacecraft Speed: 16,760 miles/hr (26,972 km/hr)
• Design Life: 5 years
• Consumables: 10 years

Landsat 9, launched on September 27, 2021 at 1:12PM CST from Vanden­berg Air Force Base, California, onboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 401 rocket. Landsat 9 carries the Opera­tional Land Imager 2 (OLI–2), built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corpora­tion, Boulder, Colorado, and the Thermal Infrared Sensor 2 (TIRS–2), built at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland. Northrop Grumman designed and fabricated the space­craft and integrat­ed the two instruments.

NASA is responsible for the space segment (instruments and spacecraft/observatory), mission integration, launch, and on-orbit checkout. 

After NASA completes on-orbit checkout, the USGS is responsible for the ground system, flight operations, data processing, data product distribution and archiving.  

Landsat 9 Instruments 

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The instruments onboard Landsat 9 are improved replicas of those currently collecting data onboard Landsat 8, which are already providing data that is radio­metrically and geometrically superior than instruments on previous generation Landsat satellites.

The satellite carries two science instruments, the Operational Land Imager 2 (OLI-2) and the Thermal Infrared Sensor 2 (TIRS-2). The OLI–2 captures observations of the Earth’s surface in visible, near-infrared, and shortwave-infrared bands, and TIRS-2 measures thermal infrared radiation, or heat, emitted from the Earth’s surface. Both OLI and TIRS have a 5-year mission design life, although the spacecraft has 10+ years of consumables.

Landsat 9 improvements include higher radiometric resolution for OLI-2 (14-bit quantization increased from 12-bits for Landsat 8) allowing sensors to detect more subtle differences, especially over darker areas such as water or dense forests. With the higher radiometric resolution, Landsat 9 can differentiate 16,384 shades of a given wavelength. In comparison, Landsat 8 provides 12-bit data and 4,096 shades, and Landsat 7 detects only 256 shades with its 8-bit resolution. In addition to the OLI-2 improvement, TIRS-2 has significantly reduced stray light compared to the Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) which enables improved atmospheric correction and more accurate surface temperature measurements..

Operational Land Imager 2 (OLI-2)

The OLI-2 design is a copy of Landsat 8’s OLI, and provides imagery consistent with previous Landsat spectral, spatial, radiometric and geometric qualities. OLI-2 will provide data for nine spectral bands with a maximum ground sampling distance (GSD), both in-track and cross track, of 30-meters(m) (98 feet) for all bands except the panchromatic band, which has a 15-meter (49 feet) GSD. OLI-2 provides both internal calibration sources to ensure radiometric accuracy and stability, as well as the ability to perform solar and lunar calibrations. OLI-2 is designed by Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado. 

Nine spectral bands:

• Band 1 Visible Coastal Aerosol (0.43 - 0.45 µm) 30-m
• Band 2 Visible Blue (0.450 - 0.51 µm) 30-m
• Band 3 Visible Green (0.53 - 0.59 µm) 30-m
• Band 4 Red (0.64 - 0.67 µm) 30-m
• Band 5 Near-Infrared (0.85 - 0.88 µm) 30-m
• Band 6 SWIR 1(1.57 - 1.65 µm) 30-m
• Band 7 SWIR 2 (2.11 - 2.29 µm) 30-m
• Band 8 Panchromatic (PAN) (0.50 - 0.68 µm) 15-m
• Band 9 Cirrus (1.36 - 1.38 µm) 30-m

Thermal Infrared Sensor 2 (TIRS-2)

Landsat 9’s Thermal Infrared Sensor 2 (TIRS-2) measures thermal radiance emitted from the land surface in two thermal infrared bands using the same technology that was used for TIRS on Landsat 8, however TIRS-2 is an improved version of Landsat 8’s TIRS, both with regards to instrument risk class and design to minimize stray light.  TIRS-2 provides two spectral bands with a maximum ground sampling distance, both in-track and cross track, of 100 m (328 ft) for both bands. TIRS-2 provides an internal blackbody calibration source as well as space view capabilities. TIRS-2 is designed by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. 

Two spectral bands:

• Band 10 TIRS 1 (10.6 - 11.19 µm) 100-m
• Band 11 TIRS 2 (11.5 - 12.51 µm) 100-m

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