Exploring the Unknown - NASA's History Office

352
Includes:
• Ground System Development
– Enhanced Command/Control/Telemetry System
– Enhanced Data Processing/Product Generation Capability
– Archival Restoration
• Mission Operations
– Landsat 4–6 Operations, with Landsat 7 Operations Beginning in FY 1997
– Landsat 4–7 Data Processing, Archival, and Distribution Beginning mid-1993
– Program Support/Ground Segment System Engineering
– Mission Operations Management
• TDRSS Link Added to Landsat 7 Satellite
Document II-40
Document title: “Land Remote-Sensing Policy Act of 1992,” Public Law 102–555, 106 Stat.
4163, October 28, 1992.
Source: NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
This law codified the substantial changes in policy toward the Landsat program that had developed
in the early 1990s. It returned the development and operation of the Landsat program to the government
at the end of the operational life of Landsats 4, 5, and 6. It also reiterated the federal government’s
willingness, first noted in the Land Remote-Sensing Commercialization Act of 1984, to grant
an operating license to operators of private remote-sensing satellites.
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Public Law 102–555
102d Congress
PUBLIC LAW 102–555—OCT. 28, 1992 106 STAT. 4163
An Act
To enable the United States to maintain its leadership in land remote sensing by providing
data continuity for the Landsat program, to establish a new national land remote
sensing policy, and for other purposes. [citation in margin: “October 28, 1992, H.R. 6133”]
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in
Congress assembled, [citation in margin: “Land Remote Sensing Policy Act of 1992. National
defense. 15 USC 5601 note”]
SECTION. 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the “Land Remote Sensing Policy Act of 1992.”
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
OBSERVING THE EARTH FROM SPACE
The Congress finds and declares the following:
(1) The continuous collection and utilization of land remote sensing data from space
are of major benefit in studying and understanding human impacts on the global envi-