Landsat: GEO 420 Remote Sensing

Landsat
GEO 420
Remote Sensing
History
• 1965, director of USGS, proposed idea of

remote sensing satellite program to
gather data about natural resources of
planet.
– Conceived largely as a direct result of the
early Mercury photography of Earth.
• Weather satellites monitoring atmosphere were
considered useful, but no appreciation of terrain
data until mid-1960s.
• When Landsat 1 was proposed, it was met with

intense opposition.
• DoD feared a civilian program like Landsat would

compromise secrecy of reconnaissance
missions.
• 1965 - NASA began R.S. of Earth using sensors on planes.
• 1966 - USGS convinced Secretary of the Interior (Stewart Udall) to

announce that Dept. of the Interior (DOI) was going to proceed with
Earth-observing satellite program.
• This political stunt coerced NASA to expedite the building of

Landsat.
• But, budgetary constraints and sensor disagreements between

agencies (Dept. of Agriculture and DOI) held up satellite
construction.
• Finally, 1970, NASA had green light to build satellite.
• Within only two years, Landsat 1 was launched, heralding a new age
of remote sensing of land from space.
• 1975, NASA Administrator predicted that if one space age
development would save the world, it would be Landsat
and its successor satellites.
– Since the early 1970s, Landsat has continuously and consistently
archived images of Earth
– data archive gives scientist the ability to assess changes in

Earth’s landscape.
• ~40 years - Landsat has collected spectral information

from Earth’s surface, creating a historical archive
unmatched in quality, detail, coverage, and length.
• “It was the granddaddy of them all, as far as starting the trend of
repetitive, calibrated observations of the Earth at a spatial
resolution where one can detect humankind’s interaction with the
environment”
• Landsat sensors have moderate spatial-resolution.
– Can’t see individual houses, but you can see large

objects such as forests or highways.
• important because it is coarse enough for global coverage,
yet detailed enough to characterize human-scale processes
such as urban growth.
Landsat Program
• Joint effort of
– USGS
– NASA
• Purpose - Gather Earth resource data using series of satellites.
– repetitive acquisition of observations
– land masses, coastal boundaries, coral reefs
– NASA -responsible for developing and launching spacecrafts.
– USGS -responsible for flight operations, maintenance, data

processing/archiving, product generation, and distribution.
• 1972 – Landsat 1 launched
• 1999 – Launch of Landsat 7
• ~40+ years of data - longest continuous record of the

earth's surfaces.
• Critical to land surface monitoring and global change

research.
• No other eos matches Landsat's combination of

synoptic coverage, spatial and spectral resolution.
Landsat 1: MSS 1972–1978
Landsat 3: MSS 1978–1983 added thermal band but it failed
Landsat 4: MSS, TM (7 bands) 1982–2001* data downlink failed in 1993
Landsat 5: MSS, TM 1984–2012 (28 years, 10 months)
Landsat 6: MSS, ETM failed launch, 1993
Landsat 7: ETM+ 1999–still operational
Landsat 8: ETM+ Launch Feb. 11 2013
Landsat-1 & 2
Objective: To demonstrate the usefulness of

remote sensing data for land and resource
applications.
Design life of one year.

Multispectral Scanner
• Measured reflected energy in 4 spectral
bands.
• Landsat 3 - MSS sensor with additional

band in thermal (heat) infrared radiation.
MSS Bands
Band micron resolution
4 0.5-0.6 68 m x 83 m
5 0.6-0.7 68 m x 83 m
6 0.7-0.8 68 m x 83 m
7 0.8-1.1 68 m x 83 m
8 10.41-12.6 68 m x 83 m
Landsat 4, 5, & 7
Photo: Thematic Mapper (TM),
second-generation sensor for
monitoring Earth's resources.
Sensors
• MSS and TM sensors primarily detect

reflected radiation from Earth's surface in
vis and IR.
• But the TM sensor with its seven spectral

bands provides more radiometric
information than the MSS sensor.
Sensors
• Sensors have evolved – MSS, TM, Enhanced
Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+)
• Primary new features on Landsat 7 are

addition of band 8:
– panchromatic band with 15m spatial resolution
• Panchromatic: sensitive to all or most of the visible spectrum.
– thermal IR channel with 60m spatial resolution

• panchromatic band 8 covers 0.52-0.92 µm
– extends over band 2 (0.525-0.605 µm), band 3
(0.630-0.690 µm) and band 4 (0.750-0.900 µm).
– Pixel size 15 m
– Used for high-spatial-resolution analysis.

Landsat 7 and TM & ETM+ Characteristics:
Band Spectral Range(µm) Resolution(m)
1 .45 to .51 30
2 .525 to .605 30
3 .63 to .690 30
4 .75 to .90 30
5 1.55 to 1.75 30
7 2.09 to 2.35 30
6 10.40 to 12.5 60
8 .52 to .90 15
Landsat 8 (Landsat Data Continuity Mission) – 2013
Landsat Data Continuity Mission – 2013
landsat.usgs.gov/L8_band_combos.php – compare Landsat 7 to Landsat 8
Landsat 3: MSS 1978–1983 added thermal band but it failed
Landsat 4: MSS, TM (7 bands) 1982–2001* data downlink failed in 1993
Landsat 5: MSS, TM 1984–2012 (28 years, 10 months)
Landsat 6: MSS, ETM failed launch, 1993
Landsat 7: ETM+ 1999–still operational
Landsat 8: ETM+ Launch Feb. 11 2013
Near Polar/Sun-synchronous orbits
Repeat coverage interval: 16 days (233 orbits)

Ground System
• Capable of capturing and processing 250
Landsat scenes and delivering 100 scenes to
users each day.

Benefits
Mission Continuity: Landsat 7 - latest in long
history of land remote sensing spacecraft,
spanning 40 years of multispectral imaging.
Global Mission: data acquired systematically to

build and periodically refresh a global archive of
sun-lit, substantially cloud-free images of the
Earth's landmass.
Benefits
Earth's landmass imaged every 16 days - using
a planning scenario that emphasizes
seasonal changes in vegetation and uses
cloud predictions from the National Weather
Service to avoid imaging cloudy areas, thus
optimizing the data acquisition strategy.
Benefits
Affordable Data Products: Landsat
products available from the EROS Data
Center for free.
Color Composites in Landsat TM Data
• Three-band composites created using the measured
reflected energy three spectral bands.
• The way in which the bands are mapped to the three

colors in the output image depends on what information
is desired to be highlighted in the image.
• For some applications, desirable for landcover classes to

be associated with familiar colors, e.g., grass is green.
• In other cases, contrasting colors are preferred to

highlight objects of interest from the background.
7 TM Bands
True-Color Composite (3,2,1)

• approximates range of vision for human eye
• images appear as we would expect to see in
photograph.
• low in contrast, somewhat hazy - blue light more
susceptible to scattering by atmosphere.
• Broad-based analysis of underwater features and
landcover are applications for true-color
composites.
• Band 3 (Visible red) = red
• Band 2 (Visible green) = green
• Band 1 (Visible blue-green) = blue
Near Infrared Composite (4,3,2)

• Add near infrared (NIR) band and drop visible
blue band.
• Vegetation in the NIR band is highly reflective
• NIR composite vividly shows vegetation in
various shades of red.
• Water appears dark, almost black, due to the
absorption of energy in the visible red and NIR
bands.
Band 4 (NIR) = red
Band 3 (Visible red) = green
Band 2 (Visible green) = blue
• Shortwave Infrared Composite (7,4,3 or 7,4,2)

• contains at least one shortwave infrared (SWIR)
band.
• Reflectance in the SWIR region is due primarily
to moisture content.
• SWIR bands are especially suited for change
detection, disturbed soils, soil type, and
vegetation stress.
• Band 7 (SWIR) = red
• Band 4 (NIR) = green
• Band 3 (red) = blue
Or...
• Band 7 (SWIR) = red
• Band 4 (NIR) = green
• Band 2 (green) = blue
vegetation - shades of
green.
Bare soils and clearcut

areas - purplish or
magenta.
bright red area is an active

fire.
smoke plume originating

from active fire site
appears faint bluish.
Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico - Landsat 7
Station Fire - August 30, 2009 - 140,000 acres burned in Angeles National Forest - Mt.
Wilson Observatory threatened. Blue and white haze is smoke, pinkish areas have been
burned, active fires appear bright red.
Landsat-7 ETM+
Striping caused by
failure of scan line
corrector in 2003,
introduced major
striping in ETM+
imagery.
Landsat 5 image - Esperanza Fire in San Bernardino National Forest, Oct. 26, 2006. The
fire caused a huge smoke plume; reaching ~3.0 miles high. Large image is a natural-
color composite, small inset is false-color composite. The active fire fronts in the false-
color image appear bright yellow.
Two false-color Landsat 5 images (1984 and 2009). ]dark purple grid of city streets and
green of irrigated vegetation.
Images were created using reflected light from the shortwave infrared, near-infrared and
green portions of the electromagnetic spectrum (Landsat 5 TM bands 7,4,2)
Venice - Landsat 7 - 2001. pan-sharpened false-color composite of ETM+
bands 7, 5, and 3. Venice can be found on Landsat WRS-2 Path 192 Row
28.
Climate Change - Lake Chad borders Chad, Niger, Nigeria, and
Cameroon, as well as on a natural border, the Sahel: a grassland which divides
the Sahara Desert to the north and the more humid savannah to the south.
Because Lake Chad is a shallow lake, depths of 16 - 26 feet, its surface area
fluctuates markedly with changes in climate.
Wisconsin tornado damage - Landsat 2007. natural-color image.
Accessing Landsat Data
Accessing Landsat Data – path 40 row 36

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Landsat

• 1965, director of USGS, proposed idea of

• When Landsat 1 was proposed, it was met with

• DoD feared a civilian program like Landsat would

• 1966 - USGS convinced Secretary of the Interior (Stewart Udall) to

• This political stunt coerced NASA to expedite the building of

• But, budgetary constraints and sensor disagreements between

• Finally, 1970, NASA had green light to build satellite.

– data archive gives scientist the ability to assess changes in

• ~40 years - Landsat has collected spectral information

• Landsat sensors have moderate spatial-resolution.

– Can’t see individual houses, but you can see large

– repetitive acquisition of observations

– land masses, coastal boundaries, coral reefs

– NASA -responsible for developing and launching spacecrafts.

– USGS -responsible for flight operations, maintenance, data

• 1999 – Launch of Landsat 7

• ~40+ years of data - longest continuous record of the

• Critical to land surface monitoring and global change

• No other eos matches Landsat's combination of

Objective: To demonstrate the usefulness of

Design life of one year.

• Landsat 3 - MSS sensor with additional

Band micron resolution

• MSS and TM sensors primarily detect

• But the TM sensor with its seven spectral

• Primary new features on Landsat 7 are

– thermal IR channel with 60m spatial resolution

– Used for high-spatial-resolution analysis.

Repeat coverage interval: 16 days (233 orbits)

• Capable of capturing and processing 250

Landsat scenes and delivering 100 scenes to

users each day.

Global Mission: data acquired systematically to

• The way in which the bands are mapped to the three

• For some applications, desirable for landcover classes to

• In other cases, contrasting colors are preferred to

True-Color Composite (3,2,1)

Near Infrared Composite (4,3,2)

• Shortwave Infrared Composite (7,4,3 or 7,4,2)

Bare soils and clearcut

bright red area is an active

smoke plume originating

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