SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog (STAC)
The SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog (STAC) family of specifications helps standardize the way geospatial metadata is structured and queried.
This page describes many STAC components - a browser, an API, samples, and tutorials. Review each section below to learn all about STAC.
Return to Landsat Commercial Cloud Access Information
A "spatiotemporal asset" is any file that represents information about the Earth at a certain place and time. STAC is intentionally designed with a minimal core and flexible extension mechanism to support a broad set of use cases.
All Landsat data stored in the AWS cloud platform include SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog (STAC) metadata. Key features of STAC metadata include:
- Interoperability between satellite metadata (e.g., Landsat 8 + Sentinel 2 instruments)
- Exposes data in a common, machine-readable JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format for both end users and internal processes
- Includes direct links to Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) objects
- Provides the ability to quickly search large collections of data using spatial and temporal areas of interest
- Lives alongside product-level metadata (Landsat Metadata (MTL), Extensible Markup Language (XML)
STAC Browser
The USG EROS STAC Browser is a web-based Graphical User Interface (GUI) that allows users to browse and review STAC records and thumbnails for Landsat data in the cloud.
STAC Server API
The Landsatlook STAC Server API is a RESTful API built on the STAC specification, enabling programmatic access to Landsat data catalogs. The API follows RESTful principles, making it intuitive and easy to use. It uses HTTP methods like GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE for different operations such as querying, filtering, and updating metadata. Key features of the STAC Server API include:
- Search: Find data assets based on criteria like keywords, spatial extent, temporal range, and properties.
- Explore: Browse available collections and retrieve detailed information about individual data assets, including format, coverage, and metadata. The results are presented in JSON format, resembling a tree-like structure that mirrors folders and files, facilitating easy navigation and interpretation.
- Download: Access Landsat data as Cloud Optimized GeoTIFFs (COGs), designed for efficient storage and access of raster data in the cloud.
STAC Samples
View these samples to become familiar with STAC. The text displayed in parathesis indicates the STAC Collection where each record can be found.
Landsat Level-1 Product
Landsat Level-2 Science Products
Landsat Analysis Ready Data (ARD)
Landsat Level-3 Science Products
STAC Tutorials
Visit the links below to view the tutorials that have been created to help use Landsat data.
General information on using STAC and STAC metadata can be found on the STAC GitHub repository or the STAC webpage.
Occasional updates are made to STAC Metadata. Details about each update are added tot the STAC GitHub Changelog repository.