Every Pixel - Landsat's Orbit

Traveling just above

earth’s surface,
Landsat 8 orbits in a

sun-synchronous path.
Meaning that as the craft

travels from the north
pole to the south, the

surface below is
in full sunlight.

At a speed of over

Landsat completes an
orbit every 99 minutes.

Aboard Landsat 8 are two
instruments for capturing

data: the Operational
Land Imager and the

Thermal InfraRed Sensor.
Both record land observations

across a 185 kilometer wide,
horizontal swath.

Over a 16 day cycle,
Landsat covers the entire

surface of earth, making
over 200 passes and traveling

more than 9 and a half million
kilometers in the process.