For more than 30 years, Landsat satellites have collected data on the Earth’s continental surfaces constituting the longest continuous record of the Earth’s surface as seen from space. LDCM will continue the Landsat observatories’ heritage, obtaining unique multi-spectral land images and data to be used in agriculture, geology, forestry, regional planning, education, mapping, global change research, emergency response and disaster relief.
Orbital is building the LDCM spacecraft, continuing a program began by General Dynamics AIS (acquired by Orbital in April 2010) combining a simple, robust design based on flight-proven components. Planned for launch in 2012, LDCM is designed for high reliability to provide data continuity for the vital Landsat mission.
NASA and the US Geological Survey (USGS) share responsibility for the LDCM program. NASA is developing the flight systems including the spacecraft, instruments, mission-operations, launch, and in-orbit checkout. The USGS is developing and will operate the ground network, image-processing and archive facilities, and will disseminate LDCM data to the user community. The USGS will also be responsible for satellite flight operations following launch.
Performance:
Orbit: 705 km, Sun synchronous
Launch mass: 2,623 kg
Solar Arrays: 4300 W, articulated
Stabilization: 3-axis, nadir pointing
Mission Life: 5 Years (7 planned)
Status:
In production. Launch planned for 2012 aboard an Atlas V rocket.
Customer
NASA/USGS
Mission
Moderate-resolution land remote sensing
Quick Facts
The Landsat series of satellite constitutes the longest continuous record of Earth’s surface from space
