After a long gap since its first flight of the year in May, United Launch Alliance’s
Atlas V 401 rocket had its second launch of the year today. In a spectacular lift off,
the two-stage rocket blasted off the Landsat 9 satellite,
a joint NASA and U.S. Geological Survey mission that will continue the legacy of
monitoring Earth’s land and coastal regions that started with the first Landsat satellite in 1972.
Landsat 9 was launched from Space Launch Complex 3 at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California,
and is now headed for its near-polar, sun-synchronous orbit.
The satellite will join its sister satellite, Landsat 8, in orbit where it would be collecting
images from across the planet every eight days. This calibrated data will continue the Landsat
program’s critical role in monitoring the health of Earth and helping people
manage essential resources, including crops, irrigation water, and forests.
Images from Landsat 9 will be added to nearly 50 years of free and publicly available data
from the mission – the longest data record of Earth’s landscapes taken from space.
Landsat’s medium-resolution imaging capabilities allow researchers to detect the footprint of human
activities and their impact on our home planet. The satellite carries two science instruments,
The Operational Land Imager 2 and The Thermal Infrared Sensor 2.
Both instruments have sensors with moderate spatial resolution—
15 m, 30 m, and 100 m, depending on spectral band—and the ability to detect a higher range in
intensity than its predecessor Landsat 8. Aerospace giant Northrop Grumman designed
and manufactured the Landsat 9 spacecraft, integrated the mission’s
two government-furnished instruments, and conducted satellite-level testing.
Landsat 9 will improve NASA scientists’ ability to measure changes on the global land surface
at a scale where they can separate human and natural causes of change.
The satellite will thus contribute a critical component
to the international strategy for monitoring the health and state of the Earth.
The Landsat constellation of satellites will now be offering
weekly tropical deforestation alerts, water quality monitoring, and crop condition reports.
With increased activity in international and commercial remote sensing, Landsat has emerged
as a cornerstone of the global constellation of imagers.
The Landsat 9 spacecraft was encapsulated in the 4-m diameter payload fairing.
With the payload fairing, the Saturn V rocket stood at 194 ft (or just under 60 meters).
The two-stage carrier rocket’s Centaur second stage is 3 m in diameter and 12.6 m in length.
Centaur is a cryogenic vehicle, fueled with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, powered by an RL10C-1
engine, producing 101.8 kilo-Newtons of thrust. The first-stage booster is 3.8 m in diameter
and 32.5 m in length. Booster propulsion is provided by the RD-180 engine system that burns
highly purified kerosene and liquid oxygen and delivers 3.83 mega-Newtons of thrust at sea level.
That’s it for this video. I’ll see you in the next one.