Landsat 1, 2, 3

Part of the Landsat program

The first 3 Landsat missions were also known as the Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS) series. Images from Landsat 1 demonstrated the usefulness of remote sensing data for land surveys, land management, water resource planning, agricultural forecasting, forest management, sea ice movement, and cartography. When Landsat 1 was finally removed from service in January 1978 due to tape recorder faults, it had returned over 300000 images. Landsat 2 was removed from service on 2/25/82, and Landsat 3 was removed from service on 3/31/83. Archived images from these missions are available through EOSAT.

Spacecraft
The spacecraft design had significant inheritance from the Nimbus program (also manufactured by General Electric). 3-axis stabilized using 4 momentum wheels to 0.7 deg accuracy. Twin solar paddles (single-axis articulation) provided 1000 W (BOL peak), 515 W (BOL ave). NiCd batteries. S-Band and VHF communications with 1 W transponder. Hydrazine propulsion system with 3 thrusters. Data downlink rate of 15 Mbps.

Payload
Carried Return Beam Vidicon (RBV) and Multi-Spectral Scanner (MSS) imaging sensors. The MSS covers 0.5 to 12.6 µ m and provides 75 m resolution at best with a 185 km swath width. The RBV covers 0.5 to 0.75 µ m and provides 40 m resolution with a 185 km swath width. Payload mass was about 150 kg.

Country of Origin	United States
Customer/User	NASA, GSFC
Manufacturer(s)	GE Astro Space
Size	59 inch diam. bus, 119 inches tall, 13 ft solar array span
Orbit	Each nearly exactly 900 x 920 km, sun-synchronous (99 deg inclination)
Design Life	1 year
Related Sites	EOSAT Home Page EOSAT Reference Page at Harvard NASA Landsat Page Jennifer Green's Landsat Page

Launch Facts

Name	Int'l Desig.	Date	Site	Vehicle	Orbit	Mass(kg)
Notes
Landsat 1 (ERTS 1)	1972-058A	7/23/72	WSMC	Delta 900	LEO	816
Earth Resources Technology Satellite
Landsat 2 (ERTS 2)	1975-004A	1/22/75	WSMC	Delta 2910	LEO	953
Landsat 3 (ERTS 3)	1978-026A	3/5/78	WSMC	Delta 2910	LEO	960