› View Now 25 Years of Landsat 5 Narrator: The Landsat series of
satellites were designed to observe the changing landscapes of
our planet. For those watching the launch of Landsat 5 on a
clear, mild March 1st in 1984, few could have imagined that the
Earth-observing satellite with a three year design life would
still be in operation a quarter of a century later. Berrien
Moore III: If someone had said, "Let's have a design life of 25
years." They would have said, "It's impossible. It is
impossible." All of the engineers would have said that. Darrel
William: It's got to be the most incredible Earth-observing
mission ever, both on the quality of the data, the global survey
aspects of the data, and then the incredible longevity.
Narrator: In 2009, on its 25th birthday Landsat 5 has traveled
over 130,000 times around the Earth, something like three and a
half million miles, while gathering more than 700,000 images.
Even today, Landsat 5 continues its mission sending back a
steady stream of data, an unparralleled