Memory of the World; 2012 - unesdoc - Unesco

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Landsat Program records:
Multispectral Scanner (MSS)
sensors
Inscribed 2011
What is it
The only accurate image record, spanning nearly
four decades, of the Earth’s land surfaces, coastlines,
and reefs at a scale revealing both natural and
human-induced change.
Why was it inscribed
The Landsat records are fundamental to understanding
how the surface of the planet has changed. They provide
insight into climate change, a higher and more frequent
incidence of natural disasters and a much degraded
natural environment.
Where is it
US Geological Survey, Virginia, USA and at
http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov
The images that make up the Landsat Program records
have been obtained and continuously updated by
sensors onboard a series of land-imaging satellites
that began with the launch of Landsat 1 in 1972. ‘The
Landsat Program was created in the United States in the
heady scientific and exploratory times associated with
taming the atom and going to the Moon’, according
to Dr John Barker of US National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA). In fact, it was the Apollo
Moon-bound missions that inspired the Landsat
Program. During the early test-bed missions for Apollo,
photographs of Earth’s land surface from space were
taken for the first time.
The spatial resolution of 30 m by 30 m per pixel and
the 185 km by 185 km area per Landsat ‘scene’ fills an
important scientific niche because a Landsat satellite
can provide global coverage on a seasonal basis, with
images that are detailed enough to show humanscale
processes such as urban expansion, agricultural
irrigation and deforestation. By establishing baseline
knowledge of Earth’s land areas from the early 1970s
A Landsat image of the Suez Canal area �
532 Landsat Program records: Multispectral Scanner (MSS) sensors