NASA | Landsat: Making a Difference, One User At A Time

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission will continue and improve upon the 40-year-old Landsat program. This video examines two uses of Landsat data to monitor agriculture. Both wineries and timber companies rely on Landsat data to check whether their vines and trees are getting enough (or too much) water and fertilizer. The small resolution and regular repeat cycle of the satellite data is crucial to monitoring the health of their crops. NASA and the U.S. Department of the Interior through the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) jointly manage Landsat, and the USGS preserves a 40-year archive of Landsat images that is freely available over the Internet. The next Landsat satellite, now known as the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) and later to be called Landsat 8, is scheduled for launch in 2013.