Landsat, the 40-year-old Earth-observing satellite program
jointly managed by the U.S. Geological Survey and NASA, saw its
eighth mission launch Monday morning from Vandenberg Air Force
Base in California. The Landsat Data Continuity Mission was
launched atop an Atlas V rocket, built by Centennial-based
United Launch Alliance, and includes two scientific instruments,
one of which is the Operational Land Imager instrument that was
designed and built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies of Boulder.
Since 1972, the Landsat missions have provided a continuous
picture of Earth and its natural resources using multispectral
imagery that can be used for agricultural, water management,
disaster response, scientific and national security purposes.
The OLI will use visible, near infrared and short wave infrared
wavelengths to take images of the Earth every 16 days. Landsat
images were recently used by USGS in the Colorado wildfires in
the summer of 2012. The previous mission in the program, Landsat
7, was launched in 1999 a