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Top officials from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, and Senator Tim Johnson, will be at the USGS EROS Center in Sioux Falls on Thursday as the operational control of the Landsat 8 Earth observation satellite is transferred from NASA to the USGS and EROS.
Starting on Thursday, the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science Center (EROS) will collect at least 400 Landsat 8 scenes per day from around the world to be processed and archived at the EROS facility north of Sioux Falls. EROS specialists will also provide more than two million current and historical Landsat images per year free to users over the Internet.
For 40 years, the Landsat series of satellites have provided images of the Earth’s landscape as seen from space to help scientists monitor changes to the land and inform decision-makers of critical trends in the conditions of natural resources. Landsat 8 and its state-of-the art instrumentation will allow that 40-year record to continue and extend this remarkable record of the Earth to over a half-century.
