Landsat, the 40-year-old Earth-observing satellite program jointly managed by the U.S. Geological Survey and NASA, saw its eighth mission launch Monday morning from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
The Landsat Data Continuity Mission was launched atop an Atlas V rocket, built by Centennial-based United Launch Alliance, and includes two scientific instruments, one of which is the Operational Land Imager instrument that was designed and built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies of Boulder.
Since 1972, the Landsat missions have provided a continuous picture of Earth and its natural resources using multispectral imagery that can be used for agricultural, water management, disaster response, scientific and national security purposes.
The OLI will use visible, near infrared and short wave infrared wavelengths to take images of the Earth every 16 days.
Landsat images were recently used by USGS in the Colorado wildfires in the summer of 2012.
The previous mission in the program, Landsat 7, was launched in 1999 and is still in orbit. The 2013 mission — scheduled to observe the Earth from about 400 miles above the ground for five years — is the first time Ball has participated in a Landsat mission.
Kristen Leigh Painter: 303-954-1638, firstname.lastname@example.org or twitter.com/kristenpainter