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WASHINGTONNASA’s Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) is scheduled to launch Feb. 11 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. A joint NASA and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) mission, LDCM will add to the longest continuous data record of Earth’s surface as viewed from space.

LDCM is the eighth satellite in the Landsat series, which began in 1972. The mission will extend more than 40 years of global land observations that are critical in many areas, such as energy and water management, forest monitoring, human and environmental health, urban planning, disaster recovery and agriculture. NASA and the USGS jointly manage the Landsat Program.

“For decades, Landsat has played an important part in NASA’s mission to advance Earth system science. LDCM promises to extend and expand that capability,” said Michael Freilich, director of the Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “USGS’s policy of offering free and open access to the phenomenal 40-year Landsat data record will continue to give the United States and global research community a better understanding of the changes occurring on our planet.”

After launch, LDCM will enter a polar orbit, circling the Earth about 14 times daily from an altitude of 438 miles (705 kilometers), returning over each location on Earth every 16 days. After launch and the initial checkout phase, the USGS will take operational control of the satellite, and LDCM will be renamed Landsat 8. Data will be downlinked to three ground stations in Gilmore Creek, Alaska; Svalbard, Norway; and Sioux Falls, S.D. The data will be archived and distributed at no cost to users from the USGS’s Earth Resources Observation and Science Center in Sioux Falls.

“The Landsat program provides the nation with crucial, impartial data about its natural resources,” said Matthew Larsen, USGS associate director for climate and land use change in Reston, Va. “Forest managers, for instance, use Landsat’s recurring imagery to monitor the status of woodlands in near real-time. Landsat-based approaches also now are being used in most western states for cost-effective allocation of water for irrigation. This mission will continue that vital role.”

LDCM carries two instruments, the Operational Land Imager (OLI), built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., and the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS), built by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. These instruments are designed to improve performance and reliability over previous Landsat sensors.

LDCM will be the best Landsat satellite yet launched in terms of the quality and quantity of the data collected by the LDCM sensors,” said Jim Irons, LDCM project scientist at Goddard. “OLI and TIRS both employ technological advances that will make the observations more sensitive to the variation across the landscape and to changes in the land surface over time.”

OLI will continue observations currently made by Landsat 7 in the visible, near infrared, and shortwave infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. It also will take measurements in two new bands, one to observe high altitude cirrus clouds and one to observe water quality in lakes and shallow coastal oceans as well as aerosols. OLI’s new design has fewer moving parts than previous versions.

TIRS will collect data on heat emitted from Earth’s surface in two thermal bands, as opposed to the single thermal band on previous Landsat satellites. Observations in the thermal bands are vital to monitoring water consumption, especially in the arid western United States.

The LDCM spacecraft, built by Orbital Sciences Corp. in Gilbert, Ariz., will launch from Vandenberg’s Space Complex 3 aboard an Atlas V rocket provided by United Launch Alliance. NASA’s Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center is responsible for launch management.

For more information on LDCM and the Landsat Program, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/Landsat
and
http://landsat.usgs.gov

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Copernicus will ensure the regular observation and monitoring of Earth sub-systems, the atmosphere, oceans, and continental surfaces, and will provide reliable, validated and guaranteed information in support of a broad range of environmental and security applications.

The initiative has two main objectives:

  • to provide of sustainable, precise and reliable information about the environment and citizen’s security, produced under EU control and tailored to the needs of a wide range of users;
  • to create massive business opportunities for European companies, in particular SMEs, to boost to innovation and employment in Europe.

GMES/Copernicus’s services will allow us to monitor:

  1. greenhouse gases that warm our planet,
  2. reactive gases that influence the quality of the air we breathe,
  3. ozone layer and levels of solar UV radiation reaching the ground, and
  4. aerosols that affect temperature and air quality.

GMES/Copernicus services will also improve the management of natural resources, including water, soil and forests — not only in Europe itself, but also in other continents, including Africa. They will help protect our citizens from harm, e.g. through the monitoring of forest fires and other natural and man-made disasters.

GMES/Copernicus offers business opportunities

GMES/Copernicus’s data collection and provision provides a huge potential for innovation and business development. Apart from the benefits for European citizens in terms of new innovative services, which improve their quality of life, it will generate economic growth and around 85 000 new jobs over the period 2015-2030. Studies show that the societal benefits exceed four to twelve times the cost (for more details see European EO and GMES Downstream Services Market Study)

GMES/Copernicus services will deliver information to a chain of information re-processors and end-users on a sustained basis. The “GMES/Copernicus economy” will grow by attracting increased investment in the value-adding market to provide innovative applications to meet increasing user demands and expectations. The definition and implementation of services and related observation infrastructure is driven by user requirements. GMES/Copernicus user communities include institutional users such as the EU institutions, European intergovernmental institutions, public-sector users within EU Member States, European public-sector users from non-EU countries, non-EU public sector users and institutional research communities.

An example of user driven innovation based on GMES/Copernicus’s services which could generate business opportunities is the EU’s ObsAIRve service.Obsairve. This smart phone ‘app’ enables real time access to air pollution data. In many European cities, air quality is of concern and is therefore monitored around the clock. In most cities, industrial air pollution abatement is, or tends to be, replaced by traffic-related air pollution. ObsAIRve allows real time access to air pollution data through mobile devices such as smartphones.

Space manufacturing – Upstream impact

GMES/Copernicus will have a significant impact on the space manufacturing sector, which we call the upstream impact. This is an important part of the European industrial policy. Moreover, it will also affect the data production and dissemination sector, which we call the midstream, as well as the value-added sector, which we call the downstream. A recent study analysed the most attractive downstream market segments for GMES/Copernicus, namely water, transport, oil and gas, non-life insurance, agriculture and electricity. The study, based on this sectoral analysis, was also able to estimate the potential job impact on the downstream activities.

The number of jobs which will be created downstream are estimated at 68,182. When we add the upstream sectoral job creation, estimated at 16,403, the total impact of the GMES/Copernicus programme can be estimated at 84,585 jobs. This number is not including the midstream sector, as we do not have accurate data for this market segment.

GMES/Copernicus will offer important new services

GMES/Copernicus will provide the following services:

  1. a land monitoring service providing information in support of European policies, such as environmental policies (nature protection and biodiversity, natural resources, environmental hazards, environmental impact assessment, water framework directive), regional policies, territorial cohesion and spatial development, Common Transport Policy, policies relating to SMEs and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP);
  2. a marine service providing information on the state of the oceans, including sea level, currents, salinity, oil slicks;
  3. an atmosphere service providing information concerning chemical composition of the atmosphere driving climate change, and air quality as well as information on solar radiation;
  4. an emergency response support service will address natural disasters e.g. weather-driven hazards (e.g. storms, fires, floods), geophysical hazards (e.g. earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, landslides and subsidence), man-made disasters and humanitarian and civil emergencies (such emergencies are complex and require multi-disciplinary response);
  5. a security support service, e.g. in the field of maritime surveillance carried out by coast guards or critical infrastructure monitoring to reduce the number of terrorist attacks.
  6. A climate change service will be developed transversely with the aim of collecting reliable and continuous data on specific indicators to model climate change scenarios.

GMES/Copernicus services should be fully and openly accessible within the restrictions imposed by the overall legal and policy framework (e.g. security issues). This is in line with the principles of the European Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS), and Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) initiatives to promote the widest possible sharing and use of Earth observation data and information.

GMES/Copernicus’s architecture and infrastructure

Copernicus’s architecture consists of:

  • a Service component providing information for a broad range of environmental and security-related application areas and stimulating a downstream sector serving numerous applications on both a local and global scale,
  • an Observation Infrastructure component with two sub-components for space-based and airborne, seaborne and ground based (so-called ”in situ”) infrastructure.

In order to provide GMES/Copernicus services, service providers will depend on input from space and in situ observation infrastructure. In many cases, observation infrastructure has already been developed and put into operation by Member States. This existing infrastructure has been and should be re-used as much as possible in order to avoid duplication.

Only when – following a careful analysis of gaps in provision – existing capabilities have been found to be inadequate in meeting user requirements, new developments have been launched and financed by the EU. This is the case, in particular, for the space infrastructure developed by the European Space Agency (ESA), the coordinator of the implementation of the GMES/Copernicus space component. The provision of data from in situ infrastructure is coordinated by the European Environmental Agency (EEA).

http://copernicus.eu

Copernicus on Europa

Press Memo

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Copernicus is the new name of the European Commission’s Earth Observation Programme, previously known as GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security). The new name was announced today by Commission Vice-President Antonio Tajani during the Competitiveness Council.

In a world facing an increased risk of natural and other disasters Copernicus aims to monitor the state of the environment on land, at sea and in the atmosphere and also to improve citizens’ security. At the same time, Copernicus is a driver for economic growth and employment, with the potential to create up to 85 000 new jobs over the period 2015-2030, according to a recent study (see IP/12/1304).

Why rename GMES? Why choose the name Copernicus?

All Copernicus’s services will soon enter into the operational phase. User take-up will soon follow because of the greater data availability. The new name will help to raise awareness about Copernicus at all geographical and socio-economic levels — thus creating opportunities for growth and jobs. There will be a special focus on regional and local actors, be they public authorities, private businesses or citizens.

By choosing the name Copernicus we are paying homage to a great European scientist and observer: Nicolaus Copernicus. The Copernicus theory of the heliocentric universe is considered by many to be the main precursor of modern science. He opened to man an infinite universe, previously limited by the rotation of the planets and the sun around the Earth, and created a world without borders. Humanity was able to benefit from his insight and this set in motion the spirit of scientific research which allowed us to have a better understanding of the world we live in.

Copernicus

Copernicus consists of a set of services which collect data and provide information using satellites and terrestrial sensors to observe the environment and the natural phenomena occurring on the planet.

The Copernicus programme is not only a tool to improve the quality of life of European citizens, but also has the potential to become a major contributor to Europe’s strategy for growth and employment. Copernicus does not replace existing European capacities, but rather complements them with a view to fulfilling user needs and guaranteeing sustainability and European autonomy in the long term.

Copernicus enhances our safety in numerous ways, for example by better management of natural disasters, allowing for earlier intervention, thereby helping to prevent loss of life and damage to property. It also delivers reliable information for monitoring and predicting climate change.

Copernicus helps to improve the management of our natural resources, monitors the quality of the atmosphere and the oceans, helps optimise our agricultural activities and promote renewable energy. It allows better planning of our cities by monitoring urban sprawl and easing the flow of transportation.

European Commission Vice President Antonio Tajani, Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship, said: “By changing the name from GMES to Copernicus we are paying homage to a great European scientist and observer: Nicolaus Copernicus. As he was the catalyst in the 16th century to better understand our world, so the European Earth Observation Programme gives us a thorough understanding of our changing planet, enabling concrete actions to improve the quality of life of the citizens. Copernicus has now reached maturity as a programme and all its services will enter soon into the operational phase. Thanks to greater data availability user take-up will increase, thus contributing to that growth that we so dearly need today”.

MEMO/12/966 (Description of Copernicus)

Copernicus website

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(January 2013) Arianespace will launch an Earth observation satellite on behalf of the Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology in 2013.

AsianScientist (Jan. 7, 2013) – Arianespace and Astrium today signed the launch contract for the VNREDSat-1A Earth observation satellite, on behalf of the Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology.

This ceremony was attended by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Director General and by representatives of the Directorate of Launchers, and comes at a time when Vietnam and France are celebrating their 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations.

VNREDSat-1A will be launched by Arianespace during the second quarter of 2013 by the second Vega launcher, VERTA 1, at the Guiana Space Center, French Guiana.

The satellite will be carried in the lower position on the Vespa multiple launch structure used for this mission.

An optical observation satellite, VNREDSat-1A will be injected into sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) at an altitude of 670 km. The 120-kg satellite is being built by Astrium, which will supply to Vietnam the complete satellite system and ground receiving facilities.

“We are especially proud of once again being able to work with Vietnam, following the successful launches of Vinasat-1 and -2 communications satellites. We are very pleased to be working once more with Astrium, after having launched five of their satellites during the last four months of 2012,” said Arianespace Chairman and CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall.

Vinasat-2 was flown into orbit by Arianespace’s Ariane-5 ECA rocket in May 2012, four years after its predecessor, Vinasat-1, was launched in 2008.

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Raytheon Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) Common Ground System (CGS) recently added the Japanese Space Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Global Change Observation Mission 1 satellite to its growing list of global environmental missions.

JPSS CGS now supports five domestic and international missions. With minimal enhancements and investments, JPSS CGS validates the efficiency of a common ground system.

“Since being deployed for NOAA’s Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership in 2011, JPSS CGS, one of the few multi-mission ground solutions, is now providing unprecedented global observation capability,” said Bill Sullivan, JPSS CGS program director for Raytheon’s Intelligence and Information Systems business.

“In today’s budget environment, leveraging a common ground system across national and international agencies is the most efficient and cost effective way to improve global environmental observational capabilities.”

In less than six months from contract award, JPSS CGS was ready to fully support the scheduled JAXA launch.

By leveraging a flexible architecture and integrating new and legacy technologies, the JPSS CGS reduces development and sustainment costs and has proven it can be quickly adapted to a variety of mission needs spanning civil, military and scientific communities.

In addition to supporting NOAA’s Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership and the Japanese Space Exploration Agency’s Global Change Observation Mission 1, other JPSS CGS support includes the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites’ Meteorological Operational Satellite and DoD’s Defense Meteorological Satellite Program.

In the future, the Raytheon JPSS CGS will support NOAA’s JPSS-1 and JPSS-2 missions, as well as the JPSS Free-Flyer mission, which will fly instruments that cannot be accommodated on JPSS satellites.

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(9-13 September 2013, Edinburgh)

The 2013 European Space Agency Living Planet Symposium follows the previous successful symposia held in Bergen (2010), Montreux (2007) and Salzburg (2004).

The event will be held in Edinburgh, United Kingdom from 9 to 13 September 2013 and is organised with the support of the UK Space Agency

A first call for abstracts has been released, with a deadline for abstract submission on 15 February 2013. All received abstracts will be reviewed by a Scientific Committee, notification of acceptance will be provided in May 2013. Full papers for accepted contributions shall be provided at the event and will be published as ESA Special Publication.

The objective of the Living Planet Symposium is to present the results of ESA EO missions in exploitation by:

  • providing a forum for investigators to report and discuss results of on-going science activities using ERS, ENVISAT, GOCE, SMOS, CRYOSAT, Swarm and ESA Third Party missions data;
  • gathering the Sentinels R&D community;
  • reviewing the development of applications;
  • introducing operational services including GMES;
  • reporting on ESA Exploitation Programmes (DUE, VAE, STSE);
  • reporting on ESA Climate Change Initiative and international cooperation;
  • providing dedicated thematic tutorials and short training courses (ESA toolboxes).

In addition, the Symposium will provide an opportunity to introduce ESA missions in development (Sentinels, Earth Explorers and meteorological missions) and national EO missions

More details on abstract submission are posted on the Symposium website at: www.livingplanet2013.org/

Notice that Symposium website will be updated shortly with a dedicated page for the Exhibition.

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(December 2012) SSTL’s remote sensing arm, DMCii, was recently involved in a project to monitor and help halt deforestation in the El Impenetrable forest in Argentina.

DMCii provided satellite imagery to be used within the Earthwatchers programme; crowdsourcing software that engages students in hands on activity to tackle deforestation globally, meaning that huge quantities of data can be analysed in a short time.

Under the Earthwatchers programme, each student is given a patch of land to monitor using regularly updated satellite imagery of the area (in this case, provided by DMCii). If the student notices a change in the area from previous images, they can create an alert. Other users can then confirm this change and the areas with the most confirmations will be checked by conservationists on the ground. In the image below you can clearly see the areas of forest cleared for soya fields between June and July 2012.

DMCii provided high-frequency 22m images from the UK-DMC2 satellite. High frequency acquisitions are important when monitoring forested areas as high-cloud cover means that it is often difficult to acquire clear images of the ground.

Satellite imagery provides monitoring of hard-to-reach areas and is easily interpreted by all. Greenpeace Argentina used DMCii imagery to provide transparency of the field situation and successfully lobbied the local Chaco government to change the law and halt deforestation in the area.

DMCii has provided imagery for forestry and environmental applications for many years. Brazil’s National Space Agency (INPE) have been using DMCii imagery to quantify deforestation and deter illegal logging of the Amazon since 2005. DMCii has also taken part in programmes such as the European Space Agency’s Global Monitoring for the Environment and Security (GMES) programme to provide imagery of Sub-Saharan Africa and forest monitoring projects in Indonesia.

DMCii recently established a consortium called inForm that brings together satellite imagery with other disciplines to monitor forest governance and deforestation globally, and its effects on local communities.

Follow DMCii on Twitter @DMCiiTweet to hear more about satellite imagery and how it’s helping to track our changing environment.

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Berlin, Germany, December 18, 2012 – RapidEye, a leader in high-resolution, wide area repetitive coverage of earth through its constellation of five satellites, announced today that it has successfully relocated the headquarters of the company to Berlin, Germany.

Formerly located 80 kilometers southwest of Berlin, the company has now opened its doors in the heart of the city as of Monday, December 17. Located in the Kurfürstendamm area, an important business area in Berlin, RapidEye and its 100+ employees are now housed on the 10th floor of the Neues Kranzler Eck building. The full details of the new location are:

Kurfürstendamm 22
10719 Berlin
Germany
Tel. +49 (0)30 609 8300 100

RapidEye’s President and CEO, Ryan Johnson said, “This is a really exciting time for our company and sets another milestone in our fast-growing business. This new location better accommodates our staff needs and improves our capacity to service our current and future customers.”

About RapidEye

RapidEye is a leading provider of quality high-resolution satellite imagery. With a constellation of five Earth Observation satellites, RapidEye is able to image up to five million square kilometers of earth every day, and adds over one billion square kilometers of imagery to its archive every year. Online searching and viewing of its massive collection of imagery is quick and easy with EyeFind (eyefind.rapideye.com), RapidEye’s archive discovery tool.

With an unprecedented combination of wide area repetitive coverage and five meter pixel size multi-spectral imagery, RapidEye is a natural choice for many industries and government agencies.

Contact
press@rapideye.com

Toulouse, France – Astrium Services and the Istanbul Technical (December 2012) University (ITU) signed two agreements in Istanbul on 19 October 2012 to develop high-resolution and large-area coverage services in Turkey, notably for agriculture. The agreements cover a SPOT New Generation receiving station and reception of data from SPOT 6 and SPOT 7, as well as an extension for SPOT 5 data.

With more than 50 direct receiving stations operating on all five continents, Astrium has the most extensive station network in the world today. Imagery is downlinked instantly from the optical and radar satellites operated by Astrium Services each time they pass over these stations, making it possible to deliver fresh information from any area of interest very quickly. New SPOT 6, SPOT 7 and Pléiades receiving stations are set to further shorten image data delivery times, getting data into the hands of users faster than ever before.

ITU is playing an active role in agricultural and environmental development programmes working towards 2023, the centenary year of the Turkish Republic. The agreements with Astrium Services will help to fulfil this objective. In 2009, ITU established the TARIT agricultural statistics pilot project that will be operational all over Turkey next year, relying on data from SPOT 5, SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 (TARBIL programme).

Through this agreement, ITU is seeking to step up its high-resolution activities while leveraging the increased acquisition capacity, daily revisits and quick-response tasking capability of SPOT 6 and SPOT 7.

The agreement signed with Dr. Mehmet Karaca, the Rector of ITU, is the result of a long collaboration begun in 2002 when the university first started receiving SPOT 4 data. Astrium Services is thus consolidating its ties with a prestigious institution founded in 1773, the world’s third oldest university dedicated to science and engineering.

Through its GEO-Information business, Astrium Services is recognized as one of the leaders in the geo-spatial information market, not least thanks to the now fully integrated skills and resources of the former Spot Image and Infoterra. The company provides decision-makers with complete solutions enabling them to increase security, boost agricultural performance, maximize oil & gas or mining operations, improve their management of natural resources, and protect the environment. It has exclusive access to data from the SPOT, TerraSAR-X, TanDEM-X and Pléiades satellites, coupled with a complete range of space-based data sources and airborne acquisition capability allowing it to offer an unrivalled scope of Earth observation products and services. This extensive portfolio covers the entire geo-information supply chain, from the generation of images to the provision of high added-value information to end-users.

By leveraging the synergies and expertise available across the whole of Astrium Services, its GEO-Information teams develop innovative, yet competitive, custom-made solutions based on the combination and integration of Earth observation, navigation and high-end telecommunications.

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(21 December) The U.S. Geological Survey announced that Landsat 5 will be decommissioned over the coming months, bringing to a close the longest-operating Earth observing satellite mission in history. By any measure, the Landsat 5 mission has been an extraordinary success, providing unprecedented contributions to the global record of land change.

The USGS has brought the aging satellite back from the brink of failure on several occasions, but the recent failure of a gyroscope has left no option but to end the mission.

Now in its 29th year of orbiting the planet, Landsat 5 has long outlived its original three-year design life. Developed by NASA and launched in 1984, Landsat 5 has orbited the planet over 150,000 times while transmitting over 2.5 million images of land surface conditions around the world.

“This is the end of an era for a remarkable satellite, and the fact that it flew for almost three decades is a testament to the NASA engineers and the USGS team who launched it and kept it flying well beyond its expected lifetime,” stated Anne Castle, Department of the Interior Assistant Secretary for Water and Science. “The Landsat program is the ‘gold standard” of satellite observation, providing an invaluable public record of our planet that helps us tackle critical land, water, and environmental issues.”

“Any major event since 1984 that left a mark on this Earth larger than a football field was likely recorded by Landsat 5, whether it was a hurricane, a tsunami, a wildfire, deforestation, or an oil spill,” said USGS Director Marcia McNutt. “We look forward to a long and productive continuation of the Landsat program, but it is unlikely there will ever be another satellite that matches the outstanding longevity of Landsat 5.”

For more than a quarter of a century, Landsat 5 has observed our changing planet. It has recorded the impact of natural hazards, climate variability and change, land use practices, development and urbanization, ecosystem evolution, increasing demand for water and energy resources, and changing agricultural demands worldwide. Vital observations of the Mount Saint Helens eruption, Antarctica, the Kuwaiti oil fires, the Chernobyl disaster, rainforest depletion, major wildfires and floods, urban growth, global crop production, and ice shelf expansion and retreat have helped increase our understanding and awareness of the impact of humans on the land.

The USGS Flight Operations Team recently began the process required to safely lower Landsat 5 from its operational orbit. The first series of maneuvers is expected to occur next month.

With Landsat 5’s decommissioning, Landsat 7, which was launched in 1999 and has also outlived its five-year design life, will continue to provide information, although an instrument anomaly reduces the amount of data it collects. The next mission, Landsat 8 — also called the Landsat Data Continuity Mission — is scheduled for launch by NASA in February 2013.

The natural resource management and development challenges that the Nation has faced since the beginning of the Landsat program have not diminished; they’ve only accelerated. Landsat, and the many applications that it has spawned, will be even more critical in the future to keep pace with these challenges. The Department of the Interior and NASA are working closely with the Administration on options for long-term continuity of the Landsat data stream.

Since 2008, when the USGS made the Landsat archive accessible to on-line users at no cost, nearly 10 million images, each covering over 12,000 square miles, have been downloaded in 190 countries.

For further details and the latest information about the status of Landsat satellites, visit the USGS Landsat Missions website

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