1. Reconstructing Forty Years of Landsat Observations
Dave Meyer, John Dwyer, Dan Steinwand, USGS
The Earth Resources Observation and Science Center (EROS)

2. Introduction Some background and history
Landsat 7 ETM+ – the beginning of “modern” curation/management
Landsat 4/5 TM – extending back
Landsats 1-5 MSS – to the beginning
Landsat Global Archive Consolidation – completing the history in time and space

3. Conceptual Framework

4. NSLRSDA and Landsat
National Satellite Land Remote Sensing Data Archive (NSLRSDA) was established in 1992 by Dept. Interior at the USGS/EROS, under direction of U.S. Congress to: “maintain a permanent, comprehensive Government archive of global Landsat and other land remote sensing data for long-term monitoring and study of the changing global environment”.
1996 – NSLRSDA Advisory Committee subcommittee performed an assessment of geographic and temporal gaps in the Landsat record.
Gaps attributable to (among many things):
Gov’t versus private operation
Practices and agreements with International Collaborators (ICs)

5. A brief political history of Landsat
1970
1980
1990
2010
2000
LS1
LS2
LS3
LS4
LS5
LS7
LS8
MSS TM
ETM+
OLI
TIRS
1984 Land Remote Sensing Commercialization Act
1989 NOAA directs EOSAT to turn off LS4 & LS5
Land Remote Sensing Act of 1992
LS back to gov’t control 7/1/2001
Government Operations
“privatization era”
Government Operations

6. U.S. Landsat Archive Overview (October 17, 2013)
OLI-TIRS: Landsat 8
96,929 scenes
~ 335 TB Raw and L0Ra Data
average scene size 1813 MB
ETM+: Landsat 7
1,648,873 scenes
~ 1,531 TB Raw and L0Ra Data
average scene size 487 MB
TM: Landsat 4 & Landsat 5
1,770,791 scenes
~ 888 TB Raw and L0Ra Data
average scene size 263 MB
MSS: Landsat 1 through 5
1,142,352 scenes
~ 69 TB Raw and L0Ra Data
average scene size 32 MB
Total:
4,658,945 scenes
~ 2,823 TB Raw and L0Ra Data

7. Landsat 7 ETM+ Mission Objectives
Part of Earth Observing System (EOS)
Products in standardized formats/metadata
Systematic acquisition to maximize cloud-free coverage over land surfaces
Affordable (COFUR, ultimately no-cost)
Calibration
Absolute (incorporating in situ)
Underfly with L5 for cross-platform intercalibration
Precise geolocation+terrain correction
Image Assessment System routinely tracks instrument/platform performance

8. Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus
1970
1980
1990
2010
2000
LS1
LS2
LS3
LS4
LS5
LS7
LS8
MSS TM
ETM+
OLI
TIRS
SLC Failure 5/31/2003
Launched 4/15/1999
ETM+ (L7)
30m: 3 VIS, 1 NIR, 2 SWIR
15m: panchromatic
60m: 1 TIR

9. Landsat 4/5 TM Mission Objectives/Features
Introduced Thematic Mapper, continued MSS
Managed by EOSAT under contract to NOAA
Transferred to USGS in 1998
TM & MSS Archive Conversion System (TMACS)
Consolidate and convert archive tapes from NASA, USGS at EROS
Construction of FGDC-compliant metadata
Landsat Archive Conversion System (earlier MSS focus)
Calibration activities
Reconstruction of ™ calibration history by long term trending of gains and TOA radiance and reflectance using psuedo-invariant calibration sites (PICs)
improved geolocation using ground control points and DEMs

10. Landsat 4/5 Thematic Mapper
1970
1980
1990
2010
2000
LS1
LS2
LS3
LS4
LS5
LS7
LS8
MSS TM
ETM+
OLI
TIRS
L5 Launched 3/1/1984
L5 TM failure 11/2011
L5 decommissioned 12/1/2012
L4 Launched 7/16/1982
L4 Terminated 12/4/1993
TM (L4-5)
30m: 3 VIS, 1 NIR, 2 SWIR
120m: 1 TIR

11. Reconstructing L5 cal history
Don’t forget thermal cal

12. Landsats 1-5 MSS Mission objectives/features
Experimental instrument on LS1
Return Beam Vidicon (RBV) intended to be primary observation instrument
Early (L1-3) recorded on “analog” Wide Band Video (WBV) tapes
WBV recovery ( )
21,300 HDT converted to 143 DLTs
Cleaning & “baking” required for many
“orphans” – no scene ID, telemetry, etc
TMACs included MSS from WBV

13. Landsat 1-5 Multispectral Scanner (MSS)
1970
1980
1990
2010
2000
LS1
LS2
LS3
LS4
LS5
LS7
LS8
MSS TM
ETM+
OLI
TIRS
MSS (L1-5)
83m: 2 VIS, 2NIR

14. MSS Media/formats MSS-X (Landsats 1-3) MSS-P (Landsats 2-3)
MSS-X Wide Band Video tape format (WBV)
No radiometric or geometric calibration applied
MSS-X GSFC or CCT-X (some “radiometry”)
MSS-X Orphan (no telemetry, acquisition date/time)
MSS-P (Landsats 2-3)
Radiometry + Geometry, similar to current L1G
MSS-A (Landsats 2-5)
Radiometry, geometric “grid” not applied
MSS-R (Landsat 4-5, “raw” format)
No ephemeris!

15. MSS “Orphans” Data Recovery
Goal: reprocess the orphan WBVT data so that these data can be included in the EROS archive
Associate orphan intervals with mission number (L1-3) and year of acquisition
Infer from tape ID, supporting data, film archive
Construct ephemeris and attitude support data for orphan intervals
Using NORAD “two-line elements” for lifetime of all three instruments
Assigning sensor attributes (gain state, encoding) to orphan intervals
Reconstruct from calibration “wedges” embedded within data, pseudo-invariant targets

16. Landsat 1 Attitude Data for 1974

18. L1T of “Orphan” MSSX – Path 37 Row 23 7/11/1973

19. L1T of CCRS MSSX – Path 37 Row 23 7/11/1973

20. Landsat Global Archive Consolidation (LGAC)
Started in 2010 to consolidate the Landsat archives of all stations worldwide and make all Landsat scenes available to users.
Challenges:
Various data formats and processing methods
Unknown data formats and processing methods (stations no longer active)
Media storage age and conditions
Various or obsolete technologies used to ingest data
While every technology asset available will be explored, some data may be irrecoverable.

21. LGAC Historical Perspective
Over the past 35 years, over 50 ground stations have been configured to receive Landsat data
Currently, there are 24 ground stations around the world that are configured to operationally receive Landsat data (19 currently active)
There are an additional 9 historical collection sites operated by 7 organizations that we believe could have a significant, unique historical archive

22. Landsat Global Archive Consolidation (LGAC)
Over 2.55 Million scenes collected as of 17 October 2013
Previous “Woodcock Metric”:
1,531,899
Current:
2,550,354
Previous “Woodcock Metric” 1,531,899
Landsat 5 TM image transcribed from CCRS D-1 tape – available in archive

23. LGAC Ingest Summary

24. LGAC Ingest Summary

25. Backup slides

26. MSS – Past, Present, Future
MSS Archive Conversion System (MACS) 5.0 in development (tentative release date of May 2013)
Ingest, process and distribute newly acquired Landsat 5 MSS data
Will eventually process the CCRS and other LGAC MSS data as well

27. MSS – Past, Present, Future
Current system cannot ingest raw ‘serial’ MSS data or create products
MSS – Landsat Global AC
Investigation began with data from Canada (CCRS)
Format used by CCRS (and other stations) different
Previous MSS “orphan” effort essential in LGAC MSS success
Landsat 5 MSS – Newly Acquired
Began operating MSS on Landsat 5…again

28. Lessons learned/future
Landsat next?
USGS NSLSRDA
NASA Long-term preservation content
OAIS compliance
Citation/persistent identity