Join The Landsat 8 Social Media Event

On May 30, 2013, the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) will officially start its lifelong mission as Landsat 8. The next Landsat satellite will then begin to systematically acquire images of Earth, extending Landsat’s four-decade record of our planet.

We are inviting 30 of our social media followers to join us for a ceremony at the USGS EROS Center in Sioux Falls, SD, that will formally acknowledge the transfer of responsibility of Landsat 8 from NASA to the USGS.

What:    Landsat 8 – Going Operational
Where:    USGS EROS Center, Sioux Falls, SD
When:    May 30, 2013

From May 30, the USGS will be responsible for all aspects of operating the satellite — from the health and safety of the spacecraft and its acquisition schedules, to downlinking and receiving data in cooperation with our network of international ground stations. Once the data are permanently recorded at the USGS-EROS Center, they will be processed and distributed in conjunction with the rest of the 4 million-scene Landsat archive.

Through close collaboration between NASA and the USGS, the Landsat program supplies data that show the impact of human society on the planet, a perspective that is more crucial than ever as our global population surpasses seven billion people. Over time, Landsat data has led to an improved understanding of human health, biodiversity, energy and water management, urban planning, disaster recovery, and agriculture monitoring.

USGS-NASA Social participants will have the opportunity to:

    - Hear first-hand accounts by the Landsat Mission science and engineering teams.

    - Get a behind-the-scenes tour of the USGS EROS Center including:
        The Landsat Ground Systems
        The Film and Digital Archive
        The Landsat Data Reception Antenna (RayDome)

    - Be part of the LDCM to Landsat 8 Transition Ceremony
        To include Dr. Frank Kelly, USGS EROS Center Director; Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator (invited); Sally Jewell, Secretary of the Interior; Suzette Kimball, Acting USGS Director; South Dakota Elected Officials; Dr. Tom Loveland, USGS LDCM Project Scientist; and Dr. Jim Irons, NASA/GSFC LDCM Project Scientist

    - Attend evening reception hosted by Forward Sioux Falls and Friends of Landsat

    - Meet fellow space enthusiasts who are active on social media

   - Meet members of NASA and USGS social media team

Registration opens on this page at noon EDT on Friday, April 26, 2013 and closes at noon EDT on Friday, May 10, 2013.

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Timelapse Videos of Earth Taken From Over 40 Years

My colleagues and professors, Dr. Matt Hansen and Dr. Tom Loveland, are featured in this video clip about Google Earth integrating timelapse videos of Earth taken from over 40 years with LandSat.

Video description:
Congratulations to the Landsat program on 40 years of continuous earth observation! Since July 1972, NASA's Landsat satellites have gathered images over the entire land surface of the Earth, creating the most complete record ever assembled. These images, archived at USGS, reveal dynamic changes over time due to human activity (deforestation, urbanization) and natural processes (volcanic eruptions, wildfire). Now, Google Earth Engine allows scientists, researchers and the public to easily view and analyze this treasure trove of planetary data.



Las Vegas Urban Expansion: Timelapse


Amazon Deforestation: Timelapse


Drying of the Aral Sea: Timelapse

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USGS-NASA Landsat Science Team Symposium

Landsat Science Team Symposium
August 17-18
EROS Auditorium
47914 252nd Street, Sioux Falls, SD

You are invited to a symposium on Landsat science that will be offered by the USGS-NASA Landsat Science Team. The Team is meeting at EROS from August 17-18. The Team was established in 2006 for a five year term. This is the group’s final meeting. The presentation schedule is:

Wednesday – August 17

10:00 Bob Bindschadler (NASA GSFC, Emeritus) - Keeping a sharp lookout: Landsat monitoring of Earth’s Ice

10:30 John Schott (Rochester Institute of Technology) - Land-Water Sat; New Opportunity

11:00 Prasad Thenkabail (USGS) - Hyperspectral Remote Sensing of Vegetation: Knowledge gain and Knowledge gap based on last 40 years of research

11:30 Dennis Helder (South Dakota State University) - Landsat Calibration:  Interpolation, Extrapolation, and Reflection

12:00 Lunch

1:00 Eric Vermote (University of Maryland) - A Surface Reflectance product for Landsat/LDCM: summary of activities, future work and implications for similar class sensors e.g Sentinel 2

1:30 David Roy (South Dakota State University) - Web Enabled Landsat Data (WELD): Project status and some lessons learned from bulk Landsat science data processing

2:00 Feng Gao (USDA ARS) - Developing Consistent Time Series Landsat Data Products

2:30 Sam Goward (University of Maryland) - Western US Daily Cloud Statistics from MODIS

3:00 Break

3:30 Lazaros Oraiopoulos (NASA GSFC) - An overview of cloud masking and other research for Landsat and LDCM

4:00 Jennifer Dungan (NASA Ames) - Developing biophysical products for Landsat

4:30 Adjourn

Thursday, August 18

8:30 Martha Anderson (USDA ARS) - Daily ET at Landsat Scales Using Multi-Sensor Data Fusion

9:00 Rick Allen (University of Idaho) - Operational Evapotranspiration from Landsat-based Energy Balance - Evolution, Successes and Future Challenges

9:30 Eileen Helmer (USFS) - Mapping tropical forest habitat with gap-filled Landsat:  tree species and associations, foliage height profiles, age, disturbance type, and productivity of forest regrowth

10:00 Break

10:30 Jim Vogelmann (USGS) - Monitoring ecological trends using Landsat time series data: Recent results and perspectives

11:00 Randy Wynne (Virginia Tech) - Multitemporal Landsat for applied forest science

11:30 Mike Wulder (Canadian Forest Service) - Large area land cover and dynamics: Landsat opportunities and directions

12:00 Lunch

1:00 Alan Belward (EC Joint Research Centre) – Contributions to the FAO Forest Resource Assessment 2010 remote sensing survey and beyond

1:30 Warren Cohen (USFS) - The US Forest Service Embraces Landsat (2006-present): A Success Story

2:00 Robert Kennedy (Oregon State University) - A sea change on land: New insights into terrestrial processes facilitated by the open Landsat archive

2:30 Curtis Woodcock (Boston University) - Toward Continuous Monitoring of the Land Surface using Landsat
***

We may be attending the symposium and post some presentation updates on this blog. Keep posted by subscribing to our free feeds. Email subscription form is found below.

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Free Remote Sensing phenology data

Remote Sensing phenology data. Download free Remote Sensing phenology data online from the USGS/EROS Center.

The USGS has made its long-term historical remote sensing data and graphics about biological life-cycle events available to the public at no charge on the web, Secretary of the Interior Salazar announced.

Orbiting hundreds of miles above the earth, remote sensing satellites track plant and animal life cycle events that occur at certain times of the year, such as plant leafing and flowering or bird migrations. The scientific term for the study of these recurring life cycle events is phenology.

Dating back to 1989, the USGS historical datasets provide a widely accessible and impartial record (at one-kilometer resolution) of the time of year that measurable cyclic events in nature have occurred over the conterminous United States. These historical remote sensing phenology data for the conterminous United States can be accessed online at http://phenology.cr.usgs.gov/get_data.php. The data are acquired from satellites and then compiled and maintained at the USGS-EROS Center in Sioux Falls, S.D.

“With its long-term observational networks, extensive databases, and diverse research expertise, the USGS is helping provide the broad scientific perspective needed to expand our understanding of climate change and its impact on the nation’s resources and economy,” said Secretary Salazar.

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EROS satellites updates for 2008

ScanEx’s October archive has been replenished with new data, acquired from the Israeli EROS series satellites operated by ImageSat Int.

Space images of 1.9 m resolution for the towns of Tyrnyauz, Timashevsk (Rostov Region), Kaspiysky (Republic of Kalmykia), Zheleznogorsk-Ilimsky (Irkutsk Region), Romodanovo (Mordovia), Elan (Volgograd Region), Skovorodino (Amur Region), Neftekamsk (Bashkiria) have been acquired from EROS A.

EROS B added more 0.7 m resolution images to the Center’s archive covering seven Russian populated areas: Irkutsk, Ekaterinburg, Kamyshin (Volgograd Region), Darun, Krasnokamensk, Nerchinsk and Pervomaisky (Chita Region). In October, EROS B satellite, enabling to do single pass stereo imaging, delivered images of Ukrainian towns as well: Lvov (central and western parts) and Odessa (southern district).

EROS satellites are closing their 2008 imaging season. EROS B had captured highly detailed images of over 30 Russian and Ukrainian towns from March to November. About 60 large populated areas were covered by EROS A within the same time interval, acquiring space data of Minsk (Belarus), Odessa, Lvov, Kiev, Donetsk (Ukraine), Baku (Azerbaijan), Riga (Latvia), Tallin (Estonia), Vilnius (Lithuania) in addition to Russian inhabited areas.

EROS B satellite is still the only sub-meter resolution program directly downlinking images to a network of ground receiving station in Russia, thus achieving quickest possible execution of customer orders.

One may find EROS satellites images in the catalog of www.kosmosnimki.ru geoportal. New imaging of the Russian and CIS areas of interest can be ordered via the ScanEx’s sales department. Order requests are accepted by telephone +7 (495) 739-7385 or by e-mail: sales@scanex.ru.

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EROS to fight wildfires through satellite imageries

Some of the country's top wildfire experts are in South Dakota, talking about tactics they need to fight fires that are raging out in California, and an organization here in South Dakota can help.

The EROS Data Center just north of Sioux Falls is part of the Department of the Interior and provides satellite images and aerial maps to the federal government. For the past few days, the Wildland Fire Leadership Council has been meeting there to talk about satellite technology and how it can be used to fight wildfires on the ground.

As more than one thousand fires burn in California, crews are fighting those fires on the ground and from the air, but government officials are also fighting the flames from space.

EROS Director Eric Clemons says, "We collect the data imagery down from the satellites here at the center." The EROS Data Center can take satellite images of fires to assist crews on the ground.

Jim Cason with the Wildland Fire Leadership Council says, "They help on the ground managers make decisions about how big is the fire now, what exactly is the terrain it's in, how much fuel is there?"

While hundreds of fires burn in California, Jim Cason and the Wildland Fire Leadership Council visited EROS today to see first hand how the South Dakota data center can help fight those fires.

Cason says, "The EROS Data Center provides an indespensible service to the wildland fire fighting community in that it provides information and allows us to plan for fires better."

Clemons says, "I think the important part was to have that group here at our center to see what we do to understand what we do and to kind of put it all together and find a way to go forward in future support." Fire support that can also come from satellites in space.Officials say the satellite images taken after the fire has burned an area can also help fire experts find patterns in the way wildland fires burn in certain types of terrain and conditions.

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USGS EROS Archives to Include Earth Images

The story of the Nation's land during the last 75 years can be told impartially through records of earth observation — aerial photographs dating from the 1930s and satellite images dating from the 1960s. This vast reservoir of data supplies objective reference points that are essential in documenting land change and in understanding climate change. Preserving important records of the Nation's history while providing convenient public access to them is a vital responsibility of government.

To meet this responsibility in the field of earth observation, Professor Allen Weinstein, Archivist of the United States, and Dr. Mark Myers, Director of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), today signed an agreement creating a cooperative framework for how the two Federal agencies will together ensure the preservation and access of the massive earth imagery and geospatial data resources currently archived by the USGS at its Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
During the signing ceremony Dr. Weinstein remarked, "Today we are marking an important milestone for USGS EROS to become an affiliated archive within the National Archives system. This agreement between NARA and USGS is a guarantee that our Nation's collections of aerial and satellite images of the world's land areas will be permanently maintained, preserved, and accessible to the public. These records are crucial to scientists and policy makers around the world in understanding how man and society affect the natural landscape."

Director Myers added, "The USGS EROS archive of historic satellite imagery and aerial photography is the largest civilian archive of such data in the United States. Occupying over 40,000 square feet and totaling nearly three petabytes (3000 terabytes) of electronic data and millions of film frames, the EROS archive is massive, essential, and irreplaceable. We have a daunting responsibility to care for this collection. Working with the National Archives, we will continue to preserve and make these records readily available to all users worldwide."

The agreement establishes a joint commitment to enhance the preservation and access capabilities of both NARA and the USGS. The two agencies will work together to ensure that NARA has legal custody and ultimate responsibility for the preservation of the archived EROS holdings and that USGS will meet the stringent preservation and access standards of NARA. The records will remain at the EROS Center under the day-to-day control of USGS, which has already created advanced information management system that enables public electronic access to historical earth observation data.

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