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Landsat Next

Landsat Next is on the horizon — with a launch planned for late 2030/early 2031, the new mission will ensure continuity of the longest space-based record of Earth’s land surface and fundamentally transform the breadth and depth of actionable Earth Observation information freely available to end users.

Landsat Next will provide new capabilities for the next generation of Landsat users. The enhanced spatial and temporal resolution of the 26-band “superspectral” Landsat Next constellation will unlock new applications for water quality, crop production and plant stress, climate and snow dynamics, soil health and other essential environmental variables.

Landsat Next continues Landsat’s decades-long data record of multispectral imagery, which affords global, synoptic, and repetitive coverage of Earth’s land surfaces at a scale where natural and human-induced changes can be detected, differentiated, characterized, and monitored over time.

 

Landsat Next Defined - NASA video still
This video from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center provides insight and details about the planned Landsat Next mission.  

Landsat Next Defined  

Landsat Next will be a constellation of three identical observatories sent into orbit on the same launch vehicle. The triplet observatories will be spaced 120 degrees apart at an orbital altitude of 653 kilometers (406 miles). Each observatory will consist of a spacecraft and a Landsat Next Instrument Suite (LandIS), which will acquire all bands nearly simultaneously. The simultaneity will minimize illumination changes between bands, facilitating both cloud screen detection and products derived from multispectral surface reflectance and thermal emission data (e.g., evapotranspiration). 

The Landsat Next constellation will provide an improved collective 6-day temporal revisit, a significant increase from the 16 intervals of either Landsat 8 or Landsat 9.  

While Landsat’s 8 and 9 measure 11 spectral bands from the visible to thermal infrared wavelengths, Landsat Next will collect data across 26 bands; this includes refined versions of the 11 Landsat “heritage” bands, ten new visible to shortwave spectral bands s, and three additional thermal bands to support emerging Landsat application. All bands will have higher spatial resolutions than former Landsat missions, with ground sample distances of 10 to 20 meters for visible, near infrared, and shortwave infrared bands and 60 meters for atmospheric and thermal infrared bands. 

With these improvements, Landsat Next will collect on average about 20 times more data than its predecessor, Landsat 9, and continue to provide free and open data access for all users.

The Landsat Next mission launch is planned for late 2030/early 2031.

Spectral bands for Landsat 8-9 and Landsat Next
This illustration shows the spectral bands of the sensors onboard Landsat 8 and Landsat 9, compared to those of Landsat Next. To view the spectral bands for all Landsat sensors, visit Spectral Bandpasses for all Landsat Sensors

The Path to Landsat Next

Following the successful launch of Landsat 8 and during the development of Landsat 9, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and NASA assembled a team of experts from within both agencies for a Joint Agency Sustainable Land Imaging Architecture Study Team to evaluate how to inform an acquisition strategy for a follow-on mission that would best satisfy the diverse and evolving user needs. (Wu et al., 2019).

The highest-recommended architecture was a small constellation of “superspectral” space-based sensors that would improve the spectral, spatial, and temporal capabilities. Another goal is to be sufficiently consistent with data from earlier Landsat missions allowing land cover and land use change studies over multi-decadal periods.

 

Why Landsat Next

Landsat is a civilian satellite program that was initiated to map, monitor, and manage Earth’s natural resources. It has provided an unbiased and unvarnished history of the planet and its changing conditions during the past half-century. Landsat data are critical for mapping natural resources and impact numerous societal benefits such as food security, water use, disaster response and more. Landsat also provide essential data for monitoring the ecosystems, water quality, land cover and land use change, and an unparalleled data record of the environment and climate change.

Landsat has been the cornerstone of Earth observing for more than half a century, and Landsat Next will add to this record for the next generation:

Google Scholar and Web of Science statistics of Landsat published works
The scientific contribution of Landsat, as measured by the number of published scholarly works, is larger than any other Earth-observing satellite program.  Image credit:  Wulder et al., 2022. 

Landsat Next will provide enhancements over traditional Landsat “heritage” data:

  • Improved temporal revisit will increase the probability of acquiring cloud-free scenes and enhance monitoring and management of dynamic and changing landscapes. The enables better monitoring of dynamic land and water surfaces such as vegetation and crop phenology, burn severity, water use and quality, coastal and wetland change, glacier, and ice sheet dynamics. 
  • Improved spatial resolution for agricultural monitoring, ecological monitoring, urban studies, water resources management and other applications.
Landsat Next Constellation of Satellites
Landsat Next will be a trio of smaller satellites that can each detect 26 wavelengths of light and thermal energy.

Landsat Next will provide new capabilities for the next generation of Landsat users:

  • New spectral bands and refined bands will support new and evolving applications, including surface water quality, cryospheric science, geology, and agricultural applications including crop management and water consumption.
  • The new bands will have similar spatial/spectral characteristics to those of the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite, allowing easier integration of data products.
Landsat Next Spectral Bands
Landsat Next will be "super-spectral" adding 15 new bands to support emerging user applications—for a total of 26 spectral bands. Image credit: NASA Landsat Communication and Public Engagement Team.

 

Landsat Next Spectral Bands

Spectral band 
number/name
Pixel
Resolution
(m)
Wavelength
Range 
(nm)
Observational Rationale
1
Violet
60
402 - 422
Aerosol retrieval, atmospheric correction,
detection of colored dissolved organic matter
2
Coastal/Aerosol
20
433 - 453
Landsat heritage, Sentinel-2 synergy,
vegetation health and plant vigor assessments
3
Blue
10
457.5 - 522.5
Landsat heritage, Sentinel-2 synergy,
bathymetry, soil/vegetation mapping,
detection of snow impurities
4
Green
10
542.5 - 577.5
Landsat heritage, Sentinel-2 synergy,
vegetation health and plant vigor assessments
5
Yellow
20
585 - 615
Detection of leaf chlorosis and vegetation stress,
aquatic health and water quality assessments
6
Orange
20
610 - 630
Phycocyanin (cyanobacteria) detection
7
Red 1
20
640 - 660
Landsat heritage, phycocyanin flourescence
(cyanobacteria) detection, chlorophyll content mapping
8
Red 2
10
650 - 680
Landsat heritage, Sentinel-2 synergy,
chlorophyll content and vegetation mapping,
vegetation differentiation
9
Red Edge 1
20
697.5 - 712.5
Sentinel-2 synergy, leaf area index mapping,
chlorophyll  content and plant stress mapping
10
Red Edge 2
20
732.5 - 747.5
Sentinel-2 synergy, leaf area index mapping,
chlorophyll content and plant stress mapping
11
NIR Broad
10
784.5 - 899.5
Sentinel-2 synergy, 10 meter NDVI,
biomass content and shoreline detection
12
NIR 1
20
855 - 875
Landsat heritage, Sentinel-2 synergy,
biomass content and shoreline detection
13
Water Vapor
60
935 - 955
Sentinel-2 synergy, atmospheric correction for
land surface temperature, surface reflectance
14
Liquid Water
20
975 - 995
Liquid water and water surface state detection,
vegetation water content mapping
15
Snow/Ice1
20
1025 - 1045
Snow grain size mapping
16
Snow/Ice 2
20
1080 - 1100
Ice absorption, snow grain size mapping
17
Cirrus
60
1360 - 1390
Landsat heritage, Sentinel-2 synergy,
detection of cirrus (high-altitude) clouds
18
SWIR 1
10
1565 - 1655
Landsat heritage, Sentinel-2 synergy,
detection of non-photosynthetic vegetation,
fuel moisture mapping
19
SWIR 2a
20
2025.5 - 2050.5
Cellulose/crop residue mapping
20
SWIR 2b
20
2088 - 2128
Landsat heritage, cellulose/crop residue 
and soil moisture content mapping,
fire scar detection
21
SWIR 2c
20
2191 - 2231
Landsat heritage, cellulose/crop residue
and soil moisture content mapping, fire scar detection
22
TIR 1
60
8175 - 8425
ASTER synergy, mineral and surface
composition mapping
23
TIR 2
60
8425 - 8775
ASTER synergy, emissivity separation,
volcano/sulfur dioxide emissions mapping
24
TIR 3
60
8925 - 9275
ASTER synergy, mineral and surface
composition mapping
25
TIR 4
60
11025 - 11575
Landsat heritage, surface temperature
retrieval, carbonate mineral mapping
26
TIR 5
60
11725 - 12275
Landsat heritage, surface temperature retrieval, 
snow grain size and moisture content mapping

 

 

 

NASA News about Landsat Next: 

 

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