USGS Land Remote Sensing Program Update - JACIE Tim Newman USGS Land Remote Sensing Program Coordinator 5 May 2015 Tom Cecere USGS Land Remote Sensing Program International Liaison U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey

USGS Land Remote Sensing Program Collects, interprets, and provides the Nation with information from satellite and airborne instruments Supports improved water resource management, agriculture, forest monitoring, urban planning, and disaster recovery worldwide Contributes to the scientific community’s understanding of the impacts of, and feedbacks between, land use change and climate change Provides a comprehensive, permanent, and impartial record of the planet’s land surface through the National Satellite Land Remote Sensing Data Archive Provides Federal civil agencies access to commercial and national Earth observing assets, and supports the development of products derived from these information sources

Landsat 8 Image Resolution Bands 4,3,2, & 8 Landsat 8 Image taken 11.18.2014 Landsat 8 scene size is 185-km-cross-track-by-180-km-along-track.

Landsat Operational Satellite Status Collecting approximately 725 new scenes per day; supports 8-day revisit cycle An anomaly in the electronics associated with the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) has been under investigation while normal optical imaging operations continued with the Operational Land imager (OLI) Thermal imaging was recently suspended while the Flight Operations Team switched over to redundant circuitry; normal thermal imaging will resume following recalibration of TIRS Landsat 7 Collecting about 475 new scenes per day; about 22% of pixels missing per scene (faulty scan-line corrector) L7 collection strategy modified to concentrate on continental coverage; L8 capturing islands and reefs Sufficient fuel for a few more years of operation; limited subsystem redundancy  

Landsat 8 TIRS Update April 16, 2015 – Landsat 8 Thermal Data Reprocessing Update On March 6, 2015 we reported that the Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) resumed normal imaging operations, and outlined plans for reprocessing data acquired since December 19, 2014, when problems occurred in the A-side electronics of the sensor. Provisional TIRS data acquired since March 13, 2015 were expected to require reprocessing to refine the absolute calibration; however, based on a small number of vicarious measurements, it has been determined that these data will not need to be reprocessed for now since the radiometry appears to be consistent with the previous A-side data. The calibration will be monitored and updated in the future if needed.

Landsat 8 Spacecraft Status ≈ 2 years of on-orbit operations Operational Land Imager RF Communications Thermal Control System S-band System Propulsion Subsystem Attitude Control System Electrical Power System Batteries Solar array Thermal Infrared Sensor 10/1/2014 - Side-A SSM Encoder X-band System Command & Data Handling System Solid State Recorder

Landsat 7 Spacecraft Status Power Subsystem ≈ 16 years of on-orbit operations Batteries Solar Array Performance nominal 5/14/2002 Circuit #14 Failure 5/16/2005 Circuit # 6 Failure 8/13/2008 Circuit #14 partial recovery 14 circuits remain operating no impact to ops Attitude Control System Power Control Unit •05/05/2004 Gyro 3 Shut Off •1-gyro control system in development 10/18/2014 BVR failover Enhanced Thematic Mapper + •5/31/2003 SLC Failure •4/01/2007 Bumper mode Reaction Control System 1/07/04 Fuel line #4 thermostat #1a failure 2/24/05 Fuel line #4 thermostat failure; Primary heater circuit disabled 4/25/13 Fuel line #2 thermostat failure; Redundant Remote Tlm Cmd (RTC) Box •09/27/2014 RTC A Failover Solid State Recorder 11/15/1999 SSR PWA #23 Loss 02/11/2001 SSR PWA #12 Loss 12/07/2005 SSR PWA #02 Loss 08/02/2006 SSR PWA #13 Loss 03/28/2008 SSR PWA #22 Loss 09/03/2008 SSR PWA #23 Recovered 10/12/2013 SSR PWA #11 Loss Each PWA is 4% loss of launch capacity Boards are likely recoverable X-band System S-band System Performance nominal Performance nominal

Landsat-based Information Products -- Status Standard orthorectified L1T calibrated radiance Landsat scenes (10M in 2014 alone) LandsatLook (full-resolution JPEGs browse/print images) TM/ETM+ surface reflectance Climate Data Record product released in EE May 2013 Global 30m Land Cover Forest Gain/Loss product available through Google Earth Engine Landsat 8 OLI “provisional” surface reflectance product released December 2014 Coming soon: Burned Area Extent “ECV” available in “provisional” status Dynamic Surface Water Extent “ECV” available in “provisional” status Global 30m Land Cover Percent Tree Cover 2010 and validation data available for evaluation via USGS Visualization tool Landsat TM/ETM+ “provisional” surface temperature scheduled for June 2015 Further out: Fractional Snow Covered Area ECV available in “provisional” status Q4 FY15 Biomass “ECV” in early stages of development (modeling and estimation)  

Landsat Data Uses

Requirements Capabilities & Analysis for Earth Observations (RCA-EO) FY 2013, USGS initiated the National Land Imaging Requirements (NLIR) Project from Commercial Remote Sensing Space Policy (CRSSP) and the OSTP/USGS Future of Land Imaging efforts FY 2014, USGS Land Remote Sensing Program changed effort to “Requirements Capabilities and Analysis for Earth Observations” (RCA-EO) Project http://remotesensing.usgs.gov/rca-eo/ Partnership between USGS and NOAA for developing next generation system to obtain, characterize, manage, maintain, and assess civil Earth Observation (EO) requirements and capabilities user Leveraging NOAA’s past 10 years of experience Enables unprecedented view of User Requirements and matching Earth Observing Capabilities Provides Integrated approach allows user, data-driven decision making for EO programs to inform future systems, products, and services Supporting the Executive Office of the President’s (EOP) Earth Observations Assessments (EOAs), defined by the National Strategy for Earth Observations

SLI in FY16 President’s Budget Submit SLI is the joint NASA/USGS Sustainable Land Imaging program The 3+1 part program, with the essential investments in technology and observational innovation to ensure a world class, sustainable, and responsible land imaging program through 2035: Class D Thermal Infrared Free Flyer (TIR-FF) to launch ASAP (estimated NLT 2019) and to fly in constellation with a reflective band imager Low cost mitigation against an early loss of the Landsat 8 Class C TIRS, while demonstrating feasibility of constellation flying Landsat 9 (fully Class-B rebuild of Landsat 8) to launch NLT 2023 Low programmatic risk implementation of a proven system with upgrades to bring the whole system to Class B Land Imaging Technology and Systems Innovation (e.g., ACMS, hyperspectral) Conducts hardware, operations and data management/processing investments to reduce risk in next generation missions. Landsat 10, Class B full spectrum, launch in 2030 Mission definition to be informed by the Technology investments in 2015 – 2018, leading to a key decision point around 2019

Current U.S. Agenda for Landsat The FY2016 President’s Budget proposed a Sustainable Land Imaging Program to be implemented through 2035 Class D Thermal Infrared Free Flyer (TIR-FF) launch in 2019 Landsat 9 (Class B upgraded rebuild of Landsat 8) launch in 2023 Concurrent Land Imaging Technology and Systems Innovation for future missions Landsat 10 “innovative mission configuration/architecture” to be defined by 2020 Congressional support TBD

USGS and NASA Missions & Functions USGS Land Remote Sensing (LRS) Program Sustainable Land Imaging Program Management Landsat Operations Program Management Civil Land Earth Observation Requirements, Capabilities & Analysis Others: Civil Applications Committee, Science Investigations, International Relations USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center Landsat Flight and Ground System Operations National Satellite Land Remote Sensing Data Archive Landsat 9 Ground Systems Development Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center Landsat Science Team Management NASA Earth Science Division NASA Sustainable Land Imaging Program Management Landsat Satellite Systems Development NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Landsat 9 Project Office, Space & Launch Segment Development, Mission Integration Lead

Other Remote Sensing Data Sets in USGS EROS Archive More than 300 Data Sets (10 petabytes) are available online through the USGS Earth Explorer website, most of them funded by the LRS Program Aerial Images – 7.5M Dating from 1937 Landsat Images – 5.2M Dating from 1972 Commercial Satellite Images – 1.5M Dating from 1986: SPOT, Digital Globe, GeoEye, etc. Other Satellite Data: SRTM, MODIS, ASTER, AVHRR, Declassified systems, etc. http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/

Sentinel-2 (S2) S2 data will be an important element in any future US land imaging architecture. The USGS has been working with ESA over the past several years to increase mutual understanding of Landsat and S2 systems, products and concepts of operations. Goal is to enable maximum exploitation of the upcoming S2 dataset to satisfy US Landsat users. S2 data can be used to augment the Landsat data record; reduce the effective Landsat revisit. A detailed analysis of S2 system specifications and on-orbit data quality is needed to determine the relative compatibility S2 offers the Landsat community in terms of usability for applications.

Sentinel 2 Activities (FY14) In FY14, investigated the technical feasibility of acquiring and distributing Sentinel 2 data which resulted in: Tier 1 - The minimum requirement to be met to ensure that users can discover, access, and retrieve the Sentinel-2 (S2) data.  Tier 2 - An intermediate requirement which would result in improved usability within the Landsat community Reformatting data to be more consistent with Landsat Level 1 products. Conversion of S2 data into Landsat metadata model and pixel alignment for comparisons to be distributed in addition to the original information. Resample the Level-1C data to a 30m common grid and tiling scheme (Landsat-like) for distribution as an on-demand Landsat-like product Tier 3 - This is a separate and parallel scenario to Tier 2 to render the data interoperable with Landsat and make the data as seamlessly similar as possible to Landsat data for the user.    Requires access to Sentinel-2 Level 1B data which is not likely at this time so this option was not pursued in detail.

Sentinel 2 Activities (FY15) In FY15 the intent is to implement Tier 1 Initial operations capacity by August 1, 2015 Limited storage capacity which can be augmented in FY16 Develop and test the network route from the European Hub to EROS. Initial operational capacity will include pulling of the L1C data, ingest and archiving of the data, full resolution browse creation as well as search, discovery and delivery of the data with Landsat within Earth Explorer and GloVis Viewers Tier 2 Activities - Although not anticipated for implementation until FY16, investigation will be conducted to assure this can be implemented quickly in FY16.  Geodetic Accuracy Assessment and Data Quality Analyses Conduct limited radiometric characterization and we can perform some geodetic accuracy assessment to independently verify the accuracy of the Level-1C precision and terrain correction.  

Long-term Perspective on National Land Imaging Needs U.S. and international scientists, land and natural resource managers, and geospatial product developers benefit from the very high-quality Multispectral and Thermal Infrared data and imagery that Landsat provides Highly standardized, global data collection (over 30 million km2 per day) Highest-quality civil multispectral/thermal infrared geospatial system on-orbit today Highest-quality civil geo-rectified and co-registered data products on Earth Enduring land change data set, now and in the future Backbone global and regional image representation of the Earth

Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection (LCMAP) A robust capability that uses daily Landsat observations to detect landscape change as it is occurring A transformative Landsat science data archive that is “analysis ready” and capable of supporting near real-time science and applications Scientific and geographic evidence of the value of high frequency land change monitoring for improving the understanding of change dynamics Target all US land area by Pecora Conference 2017 Pollinator landscapes Energy development Water quality Drought monitoring Wet / dry cycles Channel dynamics

Pre-fire Crop field Year fire occurred Post-fire recovery Longer-term recovery Landsat Band 5 Reflectance (scale factor 0.0001) 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 Date

Recent studies: Landsat User Requirements Each Landsat satellite passes over the same spot on the Earth every 16 days Two Landsat satellites in staggered orbits achieve 8-day revisit coverage for any location USGS/NASA Landsat Applications Survey of 33 Landsat information products (2012) 2/3 of the Landsat products require 8-day or better revisit 3/4 require simultaneous visible/near-infrared/shortwave infrared (V/NIR/SWIR) data 1/3 require thermal infrared (TIR) data in combination with either V/NIR or SWIR bands OSTP-led National Plan for Civil Earth Observations (2014), Assessment (2012) Assessment of 362 Earth observing systems’ contributions to 13 societal benefit areas Among 132 satellite systems, Landsat ranks second-highest in impact, behind only GPS (#1 for contributions in Biodiversity, Ecosystems, and Energy; #2 in Ag/Forestry, Climate, Human Health, Water) National Research Council/Space Studies Board report, “Landsat and Beyond: Sustaining and Enhancing the Nation’s Land Imaging Program” (2013) Coverage/repeat cycle requirement: “Ability to acquire and make available imagery anywhere on Earth, except perhaps for areas very the near poles, at approximately weekly frequency.” USGS National Land Imaging Requirements Moderate-Resolution Pilot Project (2014) Formalized process also used for OSTP’s Assessment and for NOAA Elicited requirements for 11 application areas across 12 Federal agencies Confirmed 60% of requirements collected require 8-day or more frequent revisit

LRS Program Affiliations AmericaView A USGS-funded nationwide partnership of scientists and educators who support the use of Landsat and other public-domain remotely sensed satellite data for 40 participating “StateViews” Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) Promotes international coordination of civil space-based Earth observation programs and encourages exchange of data to optimize societal benefits International Charter Space and Major Disasters Combines satellite assets of various national and private space agencies to provide data acquisition and delivery for those affected by natural or man-made disasters US Group on Earth Observations (USGEO) Operates to lead federal efforts to achieve a national Integrated Earth Observation System.

USGS in CEOS Focal point for international space-based EO satellite coordination and GEO support Mission planning, gap analysis and mitigation Systems engineering analyses Compatible data products, services, and policies Capacity building in access to and use of space- based EO data/information LRSP Coordinator Tim Newman serves as USGS Principal on CEOS EROS staff members support numerous CEOS working groups, virtual land-surface imaging constellation, etc. USGS is also participating on Carbon and Water study teams