On Thursday, GEG345 Remote Sensing of Environment students made a pilgrimage to the “mecca” of earth-observation remote sensing: the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center near Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
From the EROS brochure, the Center is “the largest civilian archive of remotely sensed land data in the world. The archive represents a perfectly preserved 70-year record of Earth’s land surfaces and serves as an invaluable resource for documenting how they have changed over time.”
For you Landsat fans and users out there, Landsat 8 is scheduled to launch on 24 January 2013. This is terrific because Landsat 7, currently in orbit, is affected for a number of months due to a recent move to avoid space junk (yep, even space is full of our trash), and Landsat 5’s TM sensor, long past its expected lifetime, finally ran into problems last November. Last week, after about 17 years of “retirement,” Landsat 5’s MSS sensor was switched back on and, wonder of wonders, appears to be working!
Next week Landsat 5’s TM sensor will be turned back on and they’re hopeful it will be able to image at least portions of the US for the growing season.
Landsat 8 will have two sensors, OLI and TIRS, which will together provide three new bands in addition to the eight bands to be continued from the Landsat 7 ETM+ sensor.
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