NASA launches Landsat 9 Earth observation satellite

• A NASA satellite was successfully launched on September 27 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
• The earth monitoring satellite, Landsat 9, is a joint mission of NASA and the US Geological Survey (USGS).
• Landsat Program is a series of Earth-observing satellite missions jointly managed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey.

Landsat Program

• The first Landsat satellite was launched in 1972.
• Since then, Landsat satellites have collected images of our planet and helped understand how land usage has changed over the decades.
• The satellites have been used to track urban sprawl, monitor the effects of climate change, and see how deforestation affects the surrounding landscape.
• In 2008, it was decided that all Landsat images will be free and publicly available and the policy has helped scores of researchers, farmers, policy analysts, glaciologists, and seismologists.
• Landsat images have been used to study the health of forests, coral reefs, monitor water quality and melting glaciers.

Unique features of Landsat 9

• The Landsat 9 joins Landsat 8 that was launched in 2013.
• Landsat 9 carries instruments similar to the other Landsat satellites, but it is the most technologically advanced satellite of its generation.
• It can see more colour shades with greater depths than the previous satellites, helping scientists capture more details about our ever-changing planet.

Instruments aboard Landsat 9

• The instruments aboard the satellite are the Operational Land Imager 2 (OLI-2) and the Thermal Infrared Sensor 2 (TIRS-2).
• They will measure different wavelengths of light reflected off the Earth’s surface.
• OLI-2 can see the light that we can’t see too.
• It captures sunlight reflected off Earth’s surface and studies the visible, near-infrared, and short wave infrared portions of the spectrum.
• TIRS-2 has a four-element refractive telescope and photosensitive detectors that capture thermal radiation and help study the Earth’s surface temperature.
• As the satellite orbits, these instruments will take pictures across 185 kilometers and each pixel will represent an area of about 30 meter X 30 meter.
• With these satellites working together in orbit, we’ll have observations of any given place on our planet every two days.