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Landsat 1 History
July 23, 1972 - January 6, 1978
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Figure 1. Landsat 1
Participants
- NASA
- Department of the Interior (DOI) U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
- Manufacturer: General Electric's (GE’s) Space Division in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania
Launch
- Date: July 23, 1972
- Vehicle: Delta 900
- Launched by: NASA
- Site: Vandenberg Air Force Base, California
Spacecraft
- Weight: approximately 953 kg (2,100 lbs)
- Overall height: 3 m (10 ft)
- Diameter: 1.5 m (5 ft)
- Solar array paddles extend out to a total of 4 m (13 ft)
- 3-axis stabilized using 4 wheels to +/-0.7° attitude control
- Twin solar array paddles (single-axis articulation)
- S-Band and Very High Frequency (VHF) communications
- Hydrazine propulsion system with 3 thrusters
Communications
- Direct downlink from 2, 30 minute wide-band video tape recorders
- Data rate: 15 Mbps
- Quantization: 6 bit (64 levels)
Orbit
- Worldwide Reference System-1 (WRS-1) path/row system
- Sun-synchronous, near-polar orbit at an altitude of 917 km (570 mi)
- Inclined at 99.2°
- Circled the Earth every 103.34 minutes
- Completed 14 orbits a day
- Repeat cycle: 18 days
- Swath width: 185 km (115 mi)
- Equatorial crossing time: 9:30 a.m. +/- 15 minutes
- Swath overlap (or sidelap) varied from 14 percent at the Equator to a maximum of approximately 85 percent at 81° north or south latitude
Sensors
Return Beam Vidicon (RBV)
- Operated from July 23, 1972 to August 5, 1972, recording only 1692 images
- 80 m resolution in the multispectral band
- Three cameras that operate in the following spectral bands:
- Band 1 Visible blue-green (475-575 nm)
- Band 2 Visible orange-red (580-680 nm)
- Band 3 Visible red to Near-Infrared (690-830 nm)
- Data: 3.5 MHz FM video
Multispectral Scanner (MSS)
- Four spectral bands:
- Band 4 Visible green (0.5 to 0.6 µm)
- Band 5 Visible red (0.6 to 0.7 µm)
- Band 6 Near-Infrared (0.7 to 0.8 µm)
- Band 7 Near-Infrared (0.8 to 1.1 µm)
- Six detectors for each spectral band provided six scan lines on each active scan
- Ground Sampling Interval (pixel size): 57 x 79 m
Other Characteristics
- Scene size: 170 km x 185 km (106 mi x 115 mi)
- Originally designated ERTS-A (Earth Resources Technology Satellite); also known as ERTS-1 and Landsat-1
- Program renamed Landsat in 1975
- Design Life: Minimum of 1 year
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U.S. Department of the Interior |
U.S. Geological Survey
