LIGHT POLLUTION

Every Light Has Its Shadow

SATELLITE INSTRUMENT

LANDSAT Program

The Landsat program consists of a series of satellite missions dedicated to the observation of the Earth, managed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). First launched in 1972, its satellites provides am uninterrupted monitoring of the Earth surface.

TYPE OF INSTRUMENT
OLI-2 pushbroom sensor with photosensitive detectors (Landsat-9)
STATUS
Operational
DATA AVAILABILITY
Yes, freely available
TIME RANGE
2003
FREQUENCY OF MEASUREMENT
Continuous (e.g. 16 days revisit cycle for Landsat-8)
DATA PUBLISHING FREQUENCY
Near Real-Time
DATA PUBLISHING DELAY
None
OWNER
USA and USGS

MORE INFORMATION

CALIBRATED DATA
Not specified
MEASUREMENT UNIT
n/a
WAVELENGTH RANGE
RGB (520 – 900 nm), NIR and panchromatic
OBSERVED AREA
Global
FIELD-OF-VIEW
Various (185 km for Landsat-8)
POINTING DIRECTION
Mostly Nadir
SPATIAL RESOLUTION
15 – 30 m
ORBIT TYPE
Sun-synchronus polar orbit (705 km)
DATA VISUALISATION
Yes, multiple platforms. USGS Earth ExplorerGloVis App and Landsat Explorer
DATA DOWNLOAD
Landsat Science
DATA FORMAT
GeoTIFF
DATA POLICY
USGS Policy

FURTHER REFERENCES

– Capabilities of Landsat-8 for measuring Nighttime Lights (read the article)
– Landsat -8 on eoPortal
– Landsat program on WMO OSCAR portal

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