Exploring the Unknown - NASA's History Office

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Assumptions
This document was developed in accordance with the following assumptions, which
reflect the policies, established in the President’s decision on civil operational remote
sensing and previous space policy pronouncements, and the prerequisites to their
achievement:
• The Federal government will ensure continuity of data during the l980s;
• A national civil operational land remote sensing satellite system should ensure continuity
of data and the appropriate reliability and timeliness of standard data products;
• User requirements, projected levels of demand and the cost of meeting these requirements
should determine the design of the operational system;
• The Administration’s goal is eventual private sector ownership and operation of the
operational system, which includes the assumption of financial risk, as well as operational
control by the private operator;
• Prices for land remote sensing satellite products should be set at levels that ensure
maximum recovery of system costs consistent with the public good;
• The practice of the widest practical dissemination of Landsat data on a public nondiscriminatory
basis will be continued for the data and standard data products from the
Interim and Fully Operational Systems in accordance with prevailing U.S. national
policies;
[4] • Eventual private sector ownership and operation of the U.S. program will be conducted
under Federal government regulation, consistent with U.S. policies and international
obligations;
• The civil operational land remote sensing satellite program is a national program
responsive to Federal interests and U.S. user requirements. Due regard will be given
to foreign user interests and to foreign participation in the U.S. program;
• NOAA will manage the operational system until a new institutional framework is
established.
The Present Landsat System
OBSERVING THE EARTH FROM SPACE
The existing Landsat system consists of one satellite, Landsat 3, launched in 1978,
which covers the Earth once every 18 days and transmits sensed data from an on-board
multi-spectral scanner (MSS) and two return beam vidicon (RBV) cameras back to Earth,
either directly to U.S. or foreign ground stations or indirectly from an on-board tape
recorder which stores data until the satellite is within range of a U.S. ground station.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center controls the satellite and performs the initial preprocessing
of the data transmitted to Goddard from U.S. ground stations via domestic
communications satellite (DOMSAT).
At the Department of the Interior’s EROS Data Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota,
the Goddard preprocessed high density digital tapes are archived and further processed
into standard data products (either computer compatible tapes or photographic images)
for dissemination to domestic and foreign users at the cost of processing the order and
reproduction. Similar preprocessing, processing, archiving and dissemination functions
are performed by the nine foreign ground stations that now receive data direct from
Landsat 3.
Two additional satellites, Landsat D and D’, currently are under construction, with
Landsat D tentatively planned for launch in 1982. The Landsat D series of satellites is