Landsat: Celebrating 50 Years | USGS

Landsat: Celebrating 50 Years | USGS

50 years of teamwork. 50 years of innovation. 50 years of resilience. In 1966, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall announced his vision to create a program aimed at gathering facts about the natural resources of the Earth from Earth orbiting satellites. It was a bold proclamation. It was also an idea that worked and continues to work 50 years on.

The Landsat program conceived of in the 1960s, has been running longer than any remote sensing program. The idea was simple: position a satellite in a nearly polar orbit fixed to the solar angle so that each daytime pass would cross the equator at roughly the same local time.

Data representing bands of the spectrum are captured and processed into grayscale recordings, which can be combined to create natural looking views like this or false color views like this. Nine Landsat satellites have been launched in partnership with NASA since 1972.

Learn more about the USGS Landsat Program:

https://www.usgs.gov/landsat-missions

Video Credit: United States Geological Survey (USGS)

Duration: 20 minutes (Extended Edition)

Release Date: June 22, 2022

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