U.S. Geological Survey
Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center

The Landsat series of Earth-observing satellites began 41years ago as a partnership between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) of the Department of the Interior (DOI) and The National Aeronautics and Space Administration  (NASA). For the past 41 years, Landsat satellites and associated U.S. Government ground processing, distribution, and archiving systems have acquired and made available global, moderate-resolution, multispectral measurements of land and coastal regions, providing humankind’s longest record of our planet from space. Landsat information is truly a national asset, providing an important and unique capability that benefits a broad community, including Federal, state, and local governments; global change science; academia, and the private sector.

The vision espoused many years ago to provide a continuous record of the Earth set a high bar of achievement not knowing at that time if the observing record would be one year, five years or 40 years.  The stretch toward meeting the vision of a group of people at DOI and NASA has taken the dedication, devotion and perseverance of hundreds if not thousands of public servants, industry partners, and stakeholders.  With Landsats 7 and 8 on orbit, the USGS is continuing that vision by providing data every eight days for any location on the Earth’s landmasses to anyone, anywhere, at anytime.

In 2013 the Administration committed to continue the Landsat program for the long term, and directed NASA and USGS to develop a series of spaceborne systems to provide global, continuous Landsat-quality multispectral and thermal infrared measurements for at least 20 years beyond Landsat 8.