Landsat Missions
Question:
What is the orbit path of Landsats 7 and 5?
Answer:
Landsats 7 and 5 are both in a near-polar, sun-synchronous orbit, following the World Reference System (WRS-2). Completing each orbit in about 99 minutes, the satellites achieve over 14 orbits per day, providing complete coverage of the Earth every 16 days. There is a temporal offset of 8 days between the satellites.
The descending (daytime) node from north to south crosses the equator between 10:00 am and 10:15 am (local time) on each pass to provide maximum illumination with minimum water vapor (haze and cloud build-up).
Chapter 5 of the Landsat 7 Science Data Users Handbook gives further details on the orbit of Landsat 7.
U.S. Department of the Interior |
U.S. Geological Survey
URL: http://landsat.usgs.gov
Page Contact Information: Ask Landsat
Page Last Modified: 04/13/11 02:42 pm
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