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Landsat 9: Continuing the Legacy

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Danielle Rappaport: When you think of a healthy tropical forest,

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you think of a cacophony of bird sounds at dawn and dusk.

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I don't know if, you know, if you've been to one of those really deafening tropical forests where

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you can't really hear yourself think.

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We didn't really hear that.

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(on-screen text) Episode Four: Plays Well with Others

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And so I think the one thing that’s so powerful about acoustic data

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is kind of the visceral appreciation for how, for change

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when you can actually hear the silence, you know?

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Narrator: Dr. Danielle Rappaport is a forest ecologist who uses nature sounds

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to measure the health of the Amazon rainforest.

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Landsat has allowed us to map those changing dynamics

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and get a really wonderful objective annual time series of

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how humans have been modifying the Amazon forest.

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Narrator: Landsat helped Danielle and her team target areas of human activity

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bumping up against the Amazon forest, a region known as the “frontier”. 

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From there, she used bio-acoustics to assess

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the effects of human activity on wildlife.

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Danielle Rappaport: So that was - Landsat was really the backbone of this study.

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Narrator: Danielle is one of thousands of scientists that has paired Landsat data

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with an entirely different dataset to uncover a more nuanced understanding of the world.

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In many cases, one set of data can tell you what is happening,

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while Landsat can tell you why it’s happening.

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Jeff Masek: So the, the case that we always look at is, is the Middle East

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where pivot irrigation has led to a depletion of groundwater

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Narrator: Basically what that means is, the NASA satellite GRACE picked up

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some strange readings in the Middle East that indicated their groundwater

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had suddenly decreased by an alarming amount.

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Landsat later revealed the cause via images of the land surface.

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Over the past several decades, Saudi Arabia had begun to

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employ a method of irrigation that was so water intensive,

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it literally changed the Earth’s gravitational pull in that particular region.

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These partnerships between satellites sound great.

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After all, teamwork makes the dreamwork.

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But how do you make two different data sets from two different satellites sing? 

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Here’s the secret.

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Different data sets are complementary, and not in competition.

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See, Landsat data tells us about local conditions on the land surface.

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Forests, neighborhoods, farms, deserts, farms in deserts…

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Meanwhile, GRACE gives a broad, regional view of water levels underground.

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Using the two together deepens our understanding of the world,

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letting us see what causes led to which effects.

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But GRACE is not the only partner for Landsat.

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The European Sentinel-1 uses radar to see through the clouds that block Landsat’s view,

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while Landsat reveals the colors and characteristics of the surface.

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And NASA's GEDI uses laser pulses to

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measure the height of trees and help map the biomass of a forest.

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This nicely complements Landsat’s view of the canopy top,

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which assesses the health of the trees.

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Not to mention the long data record that lets us track changes over decades.

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Landsat is also a great complement to other, similar land imagers.

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In fact, our friend Jeff has done a lot of work

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to harmonize Landsat and Sentinel-2 data.

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Back to you, Jeff.

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Jeff Masek: Sentinel-2 is very much like Landsat.

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It's a Landsat-like system that the European Union has fielded since 2015.

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And so the real key there is putting Landsat and Sentinel together because,

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increasingly what people are looking for is a daily observation at that kind of resolution.

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You know, there's been a, almost an explosion in the, in the number of earth resources satellites,

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earth observation satellites that are out there in the international community.

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In addition to Sentinel-2, India, Brazil, China, Thailand,

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they all have their own earth observation programs.

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Increasingly it's about putting all of that together and harmonizing the data

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or at least using them in time series kinds of ways, to really accelerate the use.

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Narrator: What does it mean to be worthy of legacy?

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Eight generations of Landsat satellites have quietly observed a changing earth

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from 438 miles above for almost 50 years.

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Like most things worth doing, it hasn’t been easy.

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Jeff Masek: I think Landsat program today

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is probably healthier than it's been a very long time.

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We have two operational satellites on orbit now

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Landsat 9 will join the fleet in 2021.

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And then in the late 2020s we'll have the Landsat NEXT system coming up.

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We doing exactly know what that’s going to look like yet,

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but the planning is in place and I'm confident that is going to be there.

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Narrator: Born during a time of limited technology,

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Landsat’s founders were dreamers who laid the foundation for limitless future innovation.

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As we change, so do our forests, farms, cities and suburbs.

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It’s a mission that spans generations

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and one that we can rely on to tell us what’s actually going on

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when the surface of our planet goes through transformations.

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Now we’re launching Landsat 9, the continuation of that dream.

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We’ve enlisted our best and brightest to work on this decades-long mission

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and we will for decades to come.

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Fifty more years of Earth data in the future?

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We’ll see you there.

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Narrated by Marc Evan Jackson

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Produced by Matt Radcliff, Ryan Fitzgibbons, Kate Ramsayer, Lauren Ward

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Written by Lauren Ward; Edited by Matt Radcliff, Ryan Fitzgibbons

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Project Management by Kate Ramsayer
Animated by Adriana Manrique, Jacquelyn DeMink

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Featuring Mike O'Brien, Kristi Kline, Terry Arvidson, Phil Dabney,

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Jeff Masek, Matt Bromley, Danielle Rappaport, Melody Djam

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Special thanks to Del Jenstrom, Twila Moon, Jim Irons, Laura Rocchio, David Lagomasino, Kim Slinski

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Footage provided by Texas Archive of the Moving Image, US Geological Survey, Pond 5

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A production of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

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Landsat is a joint program of NASA and USGS