Landsat 8

The Landsat 8 satellite images the entire Earth every 16 days in an 8-day offset from Landsat 7. Data collected by the instruments onboard the satellite are available to download at no charge from GloVis, EarthExplorer, or via the LandsatLook Viewer within 24 hours of reception.

Landsat 8 Instruments

Landsat 8 carries two instruments: The Operational Land Imager (OLI) sensor includes refined heritage bands, along with three new bands: a deep blue band for coastal/aerosol studies, a shortwave infrared band for cirrus detection*, and a Quality Assessment band. The Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) provides two thermal bands. These sensors both provide improved signal-to-noise (SNR) radiometric performance quantized over a 12-bit dynamic range. (This translates into 4096 potential grey levels in an image compared with only 256 grey levels in previous 8-bit instruments.) Improved signal to noise performance enable better characterization of land cover state and condition. Products are delivered as 16-bit images (scaled to 55,000 grey levels).

Landsat 8 images have a large file size, at approximately 1 GB compressed.

Band names, wavelengths and resolution for each sensor are listed on http://landsat.usgs.gov/band_designations_landsat_satellites.php

A comparison of Landsat 8 and Landsat 7 spectral bands and band combinations is available at http://landsat.usgs.gov/L8_band_combos.php.

Landsat 8 Data Products

Landsat 8 data products are consistent with the all standard Level-1 (orthorectified) data products created using Landsat 1 to Landsat 7 data to the following specifications:

Processing:	Level 1 T- Terrain Corrected
Pixel Size:	OLI multispectral bands 1-7,9: 30-meters OLI panchromatic band 8: 15-meters TIRS bands 10-11: collected at 100 meters but resampled to 30 meters to match OLI multispectral bands
Data Characteristics:	GeoTIFF data format Cubic Convolution (CC) resampling North Up (MAP) orientation Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) map projection (Polar Stereographic projection for scenes with a center latitude greater than or equal to -63.0 degrees) World Geodetic System (WGS) 84 datum 12 meter circular error, 90% confidence global accuracy for OLI 41 meter circular error, 90% confidence global accuracy for TIRS 16-bit pixel values
Data Delivery:	.tar.gz compressed file via HTTP Download
File size:	Approximately 1 GB (compressed), approximately 2 GB (uncompressed)

Details about processing levels of all Landsat data products can be found on http://landsat.usgs.gov/Landsat_Processing_Details.php.

Landsat 8 Pre-WRS-2 Data Products

The Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS Pre-WRS-2 data set contains nearly 10,000 scenes acquired by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) and/or Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) sensors after launch (February 11, 2013) through April 10, 2013, when the satellite achieved operational orbit (WRS-2). The earliest images are TIRS data only. These data are also visible and can be downloaded using GloVis or EarthExplorer.

While these data meet the quality standards and have the same geometric precision as data acquired on April 11, 2013 and beyond, the geographic extents of each scene will differ.

Most data will be processed to an L1T (as other standard products), and the pixel size will be 30 meters. There may be some differences in the spatial resolution of the early TIRS images due to telescope temperature changes, but they should be within +/- 1 percent. The TIRS data will be resampled to 30 meters for co-registration with the OLI data.

Landsat 8 Data Documentation and Information

FAQ’s specific to Landsat 8 can be found on http://landsat.usgs.gov/tools_faq.php.

Landsat 8 Conversion to Radiance, Reflectance and At-Satellite Brightness Temperature
Landsat 8 Mission Data Data Format Control Book (Rawest form) - .pdf (1.13 MB)
Landsat 8 Level 0 Reformatted Data Format Control Book (Format prior to product generation) - .pdf (1.63 MB)
Landsat 8 Level 1 Data Format Control Book (Products) - .pdf (410 KB)
Landsat 8 CAL/VAL ALGORITHM DESCRIPTION DOCUMENT - .pdf (10.2 MB)
Landsat 8 Fact sheet – published September 2013
Landsat 8 (L8) Data Users Handbook - published June, 2015

Landsat 8 images of four areas important to the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) can be found at http://landsat.usgs.gov/LDCM_Image_Examples.php.

Landsat 8 images of the LDCM’s Underfly with Landsat 7 can be found at http://landsat.usgs.gov/LDCM_Underfly_with_Landsat_7.php.

*Gao, B.C. and Kaufman, Y.J. 1995. Selection of the 1.375 micrometer MODIS Channel for Remote Sensing of Cirrus Clouds and Stratospheric Aerosols from Space, Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 52 (23), p.4231-4237.