NASA satellite Landsat 9 was launched at 2:12 p.m Monday from Vandenberg Space Force Base. The major motive of this launch was to monitor Earth’s land surface. It travelled to its orbital altitude of 438 miles. It was a joint mission with U.S. Geological survey. “NASA uses unique assets of our unprecedented fleet as well as instruments of other nations to study our own planet and its climate systems,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
“Today’s successful launch is a major milestone on nearly 50 year partnership between USGS and NASA who for decades have partnered to collect valuable scientific information and use that data to shape policy with utmost scientific integrity,” said Secretary of the interior Deb Haaland. Landsat 9 will provide data and imagery to help in making of science based decision. The decisions will be made on key issues which includes water, wildlife impacts, coral reef degradation and tropical deforestation. With these information it will be possible to monitor phenomena including agricultural productivity, water quality, coral reef habitat health and glacier dynamics.
For nearly 50 years Landsat satellites observed our home planet providing data about how nature is changing with decades. These data has been helpful to resource manager and scientists even farmers. This data can help us understand, predict and plan for future in a changing climate. Landsat 9 along with Landsat 8 will collect images spanning the entire planet every eight years. “Landsat 9 will be our new eyes in the sky when it comes to observing our changing planet,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA. With resolution of images taken by Landsat 9 resource managers will be able to identify most crop fields in United States.
“Launches are always exciting and today was no exception,” said Jeff Masek Landsat 9 project scientist. “But the best part is when satellite will deliver data people are waiting for and it will add Landsat’s legendary reputation in data user community.”
The USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science ( EROS) Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakta, has been processing and adding information to five decades of data from all of Landsat Satellites. All Landsat images and embedded data are free and publicly available. There has been more then 100 million downloads since its inception in 2008.
