Landsat 9, a joint mission of NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), launched from the Vandenberg Space Force Base on 27 September 2021, has passed its post-launch assessment review and is now entering to start its operational phase. It is a salient project for NASA and also intricate.
NASA has a distinct team for project Landsat 9 to accomplish the destination of it; soon after the spacecraft split out from the rocket faring, the team contacted it to make sure everything was in progress. Since the separation, the team has monitored spacecraft activity from the earth.
The team tested the calibration and commissioned the new satellite and its equipment. The Landsat project continues to pass through its record-breaking 50th anniversary. The program will release Landsat 9 data to the public in February. The first-ever Landsat has been called the Earth Resources Technology Satellite. It was launched on 23 July 1972. Landsat successor is carried forward with numbers to denote it.
In 2013, Landsat 8 was established solely to prepare the stage for its successors alongside its predecessors. The program has been installed in space to secure images of the earth from the area; although there’s been a big-time gap between launching new spacecraft, the database procured by the spacecraft will be compared, and the equipment can be gauged to give potential reading to each other.
Peculiarly, the obtained reading from different periods would help secure the clear-cut timeline in environment and climate research. Amidst the progress, NASA is obliged to lead the commissioning phase, and its partner, the USGS, will handle the operation phase.
“The imagery from Landsat 9 is fantastic,” I am incredibly proud of our joint agency and contractor team for executing a very thorough and highly successful on-orbit commissioning campaign, bringing this critical mission into operational status,” said Del Jenstrom, Landsat 9 project manager, at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Landsat 9 will be taking over its work and clicking the Earth’s image every 16 days in an 8-day offset. The design is much similar to Landsat 8; both have been designed to image four visible spectral bands synchronously.
