Why A Project NASA Rejected Became Their Longest Running Satellite Program 

We definitely benefited from the data being made publicly available as a geology/GIS undergrad from 2008-2012. Did some guided research my junior and senior year using their database, too.

As a member of the Landsat 6 flight software team let me tell you there is no feeling of failure like the loss of a spacecraft. RIP Landsat 6.

Great summary, Scott.Only correct I might make is on the shuttle launch facility out at VAFB: it was finished, and we’ all on the Mission Control side were in our (final) simulations training for the first launch from there. All the billions had already been spent- & then a command decision was made- forced by the USAF Secretary- to not use it.

I started working with ERTS-1 data in grad school in 1973. Ended up making much of my career doing image processing and interpretation of various satellite data. The Landsat series was the best to work with. Most folks don't know that Landsat 2 was originally built as a backup for 1 in case of a launch failure. Never intended to be launched. The unbelievable success of good ol' ERTS=1 ensured that the backup would eventually fly. Landsat 3 was made up from leftover and spare parts from 1 & 2. The highest quality parts went into 1, the 2nd quality parts into 2 and floor sweepings into 3. Which is why 3 was so short lived and of lower quality data. What a wonderful time it was from the launch of 1 until I was no longer allowed to do Remote Sensing work in my career.

Yesterday, big UFO alert here in Belgium. A strange triangle thing was seen by many people. But turned out it was the new Landsat after his launch. :)

Saw that rocket myself! Saw the retrograde burn above Scotland.

I worked on the Landsat 6 X-band data transmitter design. It was a fun and interesting project for a young microwave radio engineer. I am thankful I got to contribute to such an important program. Thanks Scott - I really enjoy your videos. This one was particularly interesting to me.

Investing in crypto is the best way to earn financial freedom.

My grandmother bought a big, glossy picture book of landsat photos for us when we were kids in the 70's, absolutely loved it, super cool. Had no idea it was still operational.

I am considerably older than you (apparently!!!) but I remeber being able to access the landsat imagery for the first time (I also woke up at 4am when Neil and Buzz stepped out of Apollo), and was absolutely gobsmacked at the resolution and the ability to see the vegetation in one colour and other things like temperatures etc in infra red, what an amazing set of wonderful views. btw I really appreciate your channel and your concise vand accurate reporting of everything space. Thank you (Young Man- lol!)

Huh, it's interesting that both Landsat 6 and Mars Observer failed within months of each other both due to faulty hydrazine plumbing.

Long time viewer, just wanted to thank you for your videos - I always learn something new with each one! Best to you! 😃

Not at all surprised that costs went up when the program was (fortunately temporarily) privatized. Public-private partnership means public pays and private profits.

One of my earliest introductions to computers was in a remote sensing course using LandSat data. We used what would now be called ASCII art to printout onto white fan fold paper, using space, dot, * # @ etc for different shades, all on a VAX of some description.

well that's why you shouldn't try to commercialize government services. what they do might not be profitable, but it is critical h we need it. thx for video scott. very cool beans

Quick reminder - in one month it will be the 50th anniversary of the launch of Prospero (28/10/1971) the only British satellite launched on a British rocket. To date, the UK is the only country to have developed and then abandoned a satellite launch capability.

2103. The launch of sls 1 makes it the longest running nasa program.

Gosh, Scott, you are young! I remember the first Landsat! The multi-spectral scans were used to determine vegetation and also to find minerals in the earth. I think that National Geographic published the first pictures from Landsat I.

So instead of V'ger, it is actually Landsat that has detected the carbon unit infestation.🙂

Looking forward to see the imagery back from Landsat 9 and tinker with it´s multispectral data, so much science that can be done with that!

Great episode! I did my grad school research using a good chunk of Landsat data. The whole program is a gem for earth sciences researchers.

_Hello, it's got manly here!_

Fantastic....thanks for the report. I love to hear of NASA's science-satellite programs.

Incredible breakdown and analysis. Hats off as always, Scott. Thanks for going above and beyond.

My grandfather was an abstract painter, and he made some oil paintings based on ERTS and Landsat imagery. 😊

3:02 love those old school graphics

I was wondering whether the Landsat monetization program is what led to the lack of data in some areas during 1990 -1995 or was it due to the failure of landsat 6 getting into orbit?

The idea for the Yoyager program started in 65 as well although the satellites launched later than Landsat 1, must have been a good year for long lived sat programs

I appreciate that both attempts to privatize it failed miserably

Who would not love to have Scott Manley as a passenger in the intro rocket? For every upload from Scott, life goes from calm to interesting to exciting.

This program is one of those great examples for the Luddites who love to screech about space junk, and how the space program should be stopped until every puppy is no longer hungry, or some shit.

Have you considered covering Canada's Radarsat series?

I enjoyed the way you talked about the history of all the satellites in the program, I watched the launch without really knowing anything about Landsat, made me curious and now I have the answers to all the questions I'll ever have! Thank you Scott!

You said Landsat 1 was still in orbit although dead. How many others from Landsat are still in orbit? Then you remind yourself that this is one mission and there have been many others with multiple numbers and if they are all still in orbit we have a huge problem. It's stupid we put ourselves in this mess.

My dad is actually working on the restore- L mission to service Landsat 7 which is actually now called Osam - 1 he says it is expected to launch in 2024 but they are having problems extending the arm to grab the sat.

Awesome video as always Scott!

It is a massive disappointment that they didn't call it the eros program: Earth Resources Observation Satellite Program

Graphics were on point with this one. Thanks Scott!

still cant say space force with a straight face

Landsat, world's most expensive selfie-cam ☺

Pretty interesting history indeed! 😃 Thanks a lot, Scott! Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

A thank you from us to you, for keeping us "in the know" when it comes to space. Appreciate you so much!

Yes, a new video!

This open data is just beautiful. I remember checking if a glacier is still covered in Snow from the Sentinel Data this Summer

I love earth observation satellites! And your channel, so this comment is mainly to convince the YT algo that you need more viewers.

Lmao Something is seriously wrong with the captions

Landsat (and sentinel) are just so useful. I bet there are millions of people who could use them to help their job but don't even know they exist and/or that it's free. I used to work in the Maltese environment agency, and when I showed them all these tools and offered a tutorial for basic use, loads of people got good ideas and started implementing them into what they do. One example of which was monitoring fish farms out at sea which they used to do with a boat.

Old fashioned machines and electronics are just so cool looking

Maybe you should make a video on the Copernicus program

I guess the baldness might add to the age, because I had no idea Scott was younger than my mom

Fascinating history, but also a demonstration that it's very hard to take in the spoken word whilst different pictures are being shown. For me, anyway.

So, congress tried to privatize LandSat, and failed spectacularly. Then NASA tried to see if the private sector could take on the LandSat program later on, and it failed spectacularly. Maybe, and I know this probably sounds insane, maybe NASA should get a heck of a lot more funding than it currently does so that they can give us this invaluable data, instead of hoping the private sector will have a change of their profit-dominated hearts.

Wow Man! 😱 You look much older Must be the wiseness 😉👍

The weather and earth-sensing satellites have had a strange relationship. The GOES-R program had requirements that overlapped with the lower Earth orbiting satellites. The latest ones have taken ideas from the GOES-R program about the ground side for the raw data processing and ancillary issues. Of course, they have added their own improvements. That is actually the sad news because they could and should integrate similar functions for the taxpayer. As a lowly engineer on the GOES-R program, I was not in a position to cause institutional changes in either NOAA or NASA.

My cousin was there watching the launch. I think he does some kind of software engineering that was used by NASA

I’m impressed that Landsat 5 had a 29 year service record.

5:00 - that launch mount looks kind of familiar??

Really interesting. Keep educating us Scott.

Scott, can you tell someone important, we need a vessel named "Lightly Seared on the Reality Grill"? It's the first Iain Banks name that made me laugh out loud (in "Matter"). "Don't Try This at Home" is also good, but maybe a bit on-the-nose?

@Scott Manley Neil Tyson, Bill Nye, and Michio Kaku are all people who have inspired me to be interested in space exploration and I put Scott Manley on that personal Mt Rushmore for me too. This guy has taught me more practical conceptual stuff about physics i can apply than most teachers I've had, and taught me how to do things in KSP I've seen only in movies. I'm going to college as mechanical and aeronautical engineer because u helped inspire me to, thanks Scott!

Corona program? CIA? I knew it! xD

Thanks for that extremely interesting subject. 🥰🤗👍

How does Landsat compare to the more recent Dove program and the other satellites from that team?

Is it an ok standard to sue NASA then be able to get contract from them?

I know a lot about this, but this is very good. Where did you do the research for this? Some good detail here. Thank you.

The vastness of your knowledge about space topics is amazing.

Sure wish you'd do a video on NASA's abandoned MXER research (and outside related studies). The orbital tether-sling such an interesting concept. Kind of like LoTech goes super High Tech with a resulting orbital trebuchet. If it worked for Sampson, aye?

Translate key in vietnam lanquage Normal ?

great video as always Good update Thanks for sharing :-)

Hi Scott, Just a quick question. At 1:16 you show a picture stating it is from Apollo 6. As far as I know, Apollo 6 was unmanned. Did it carry photo equipment for Earth-research?? Or could the picture be from some other (manned?) mission? Edit: According to Wikipedia, it did carry a 70mm camera looking out of the CM hatch window.

YOU WEREN'T BORN IN 72 ? DAMN I'M OLD ! (58) LMBO! I love your channel ! ❤ (where do you live? )

whats 9s resolution?

I had a great view on North base for all of the 4 seconds that I saw it😂

It's very nice giving away data for FREE, but I want to see FREE DATA from Russia and China also!

Why is Landsat so significant if it's just 3 operational satellites compared to the few from ESA and even other NASA earth observation satellites? Also commercial constellations like PlanetLabs?

Only 1.32M subscribers -- where is everybody ? This should be in all the schools, and the students tell their friends and their parents, and . . . Wonderful.

Say Scott are you going to do any videos on the new DLC for the outer wilds I'd like to see that.

Curious if the youtube overlords will flag this video for corona and delta projects xD

You probably don't remember Telstar satalight or the song by the Tornadoes. Those were some of the best days! (You young whippersnapper 😜).

Wow, what a clear example of when privatization is a horrible idea. This is exactly the kind of thing which should be operated by the government using public money, with the results being freely available to the public. Any other paradigm is clearly detrimental to the success of humanity as a whole.

Wow, you even experience human on the moon.. It will blow you away...

Jobban van már a szívem szakad meg a pokol 9 bugyraban. Megorulok jozsue úgy szeretlek Jozsue vigyázzatok magatokra és a nikolajtol a szívem szakad. Imádkozom érte el a munkahelyemen.

Just a shame that a fabulous channel like this only has a million subs yet crap like demo-ranch or any of the other crap ones have several million subscribers and individual videos have up to 50 million views. SMH this is why we can't have nice things Merica...

TLk next about ganymede pls, is overshadowed by europa

Why Landsat imagery isn't also a layer in Google Earth is beyond me! You'd think GE would be a perfect good place to bump into such data. Google Earth has had so many layers of the course of the years, but some good scientific and practical ones have yet to appear there... with agriculture being one of them. A good natural resources and energy layer is also missing... and info about all this can be freely found scattered all over Wikipedia and elsewhere but no one has yet though about neatly placing it in one place, for which Google Earth is probably the most well known and best place to have it all in the palm of your hand and in your smartphone...

Video idea, Avro Canada VZ-9 Avrocar. Why did they think it could go supersonic?

Considering the fact that NASA is almost the only source of free space images it is great job. Thank you :)

IIRC Landsat-1 was based on the NIMBUS satellite (At least its' bus anyway).

There was vapor trails over the UK from the rocket, cool

Any plans to discuss the insanity of GW Ori? I'd like a more clear idea of how that system even works, and one that isn't sensationalized for clicks.

the caption functions is switching languages and generally 99% wrong. Is this Scott's accent/dialect or something else?

Landsat is such a great resource. Like GPS, it isn't just available for Americans its a free gift for the whole world with benefits too numerous to count.

Forgive the ignorance, but where does Google Earth fit into all this? I know it uses Landsat imagery, with other sources - but it always amazes me that it just seems to be taken for granted, or ignored, when it is in reality a tool which has made vastly greater understanding of our planet available to all. Why no recognition, no fuss?

Back in the late '70s there was a Lansat story floating around Alaska about a fire that had been discovered by the satellite on one of it's first passes over the state. Basically the fire was so far out in the bush that nobody knew it happening, and that it was the size of Delaware. You can't call it an urban legend because, well, Alaska, but everybody who heard it up there was pleasantly reminded of just how big the state is.

This video should be seen by all Americans who question space spending. This data is invaluable, and it's still coming in. Yes, we paid for it, and it wasn't cheap, but generations to come will have access to this data, provided we don't descend into a dark age.

Scott, why is google's default machine translation in Vietnamese?

really! your a little kid, you missed being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to watch the Apollo landing. you missed out big time on that. (the coco and biscuit's that is)

What a great report on a long, lasting project from NASA. Maybe that is what NASA is good at?

Fun Fact : in the film Kong : skull island which takes place in the 70s features landsat 9.

Just keep Besos away from the bidding process and Landsat will live a long life