Landsat
Topic: Remote Sensing, GIS and GNSS · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 6 "Introduction to Remote Sensing"
Meaning
Landsat is a US earth observation satellite series that began in 1972. Its first satellite was called ERTS-1. It holds the longest unbroken satellite record of the earth's land. Its Multispectral Scanner (MSS) gave 80 m spatial resolution, which means each pixel covered 80 m of ground. Its Thematic Mapper (TM) gave a sharper 30 m. Landsat satellites fly in sun-synchronous orbit, so images from different years can be compared. Landsat 9 was launched in 2021.
Example
Landsat images from the 1970s to today can be compared to show how a city such as Delhi has spread over farmland. This is called change detection.
Don't confuse with
- SPOT: the French series, begun in 1986, with pushbroom sensors at a finer 20 m and 10 m.
Related concepts
- SPOT
- Sentinel satellites
- Bhaskara satellites
- Indian Remote Sensing satellites
- LISS
- Resourcesat
- Cartosat series
- Oceansat
- RISAT
- INSAT-3DS