For complete details, download pdf of Landsat chapter from Eurimage Products and Services Guide
Guide to using Photoshop with QuickBird images - also covers pan-sharpening techniques that can be used with Landsat 7 imagery
Some Landsat 5 data may show anomalies due to the age of the satellite, details here.
The longest-running commercial earth-observation satellite program: the first Landsat satellite flew in 1972, since when a further five satellites have been successfully launched.
More than 16 years of continuous acquisitions of multi-spectral data - the major part of the earth has been imaged more than 350 times
6 bands of multi-spectral data at ageometric resolution of 30 metres and a 15 metre panchromatic band co-registered to the multispectral data
A thermal band at an unprecedented 60 metre resolution, also provided in high and low gain
A failure of the Scan Line Corrector (SLC), which compensates for the forward motion of the satellite, occurred onboard Landsat 7 on May 31, 2003. Landsat 7 data ceased to be acquired by ESA stations from that date. There is a detailed description of the anomaly here.
Landsat 7 SLC-Off world-wide imagery continues to be acquired by USGS through the on-board tape recorder. Eurimage distributes the Level 1G Standard SLC-off product, containing the original data gaps, which gradually diminish in width toward the center of the scene. Standard Level 1G processing applies a small (2-pixel) interpolation along the scanline boundary, and all remaining duplicated image data are replaced with null values (zero-fill). Click here for a full description of this product.
Landsat 5 data has been regularly acquired at the ESA Matera station since 1 January 2004 (regular acquisitions at ESA stations had ceased on 30 June 2001). A set of Landsat 5 acquisitions at Matera from 26 June to 30 September 2003 is available from USGS archives.
The Landsat satellites have repetitive, circular, sun-synchronous, near-polar orbits, providing full coverage between 81°N and 81°S. The sensors always scan the ground at satellite nadir. The sun-synchronous orbit means that all acquisitions over a given area occur at the same time, giving consistent shadows for the time of year. The equatorial crossing time during descending passes (ascending passes are at night) is, for all Landsat Missions, between 9:30 and 10:00 local time.
A Landsat track is 183km wide. The repeat cycle for Landsat 4,5 & 7 is 16 days. Landsat 7 was launched on April 15, 1999, and orbits 8 days behind Landsat 5.
Landsats 1—3 carried the Return Beam Vidicon (RBV) camera and the Multispectral Scanner (MSS). The second generation of Landsat satellites, beginning in 1982 with Landsat 4, carries a Thematic Mapper (TM) in addition to the MSS. Landsat 7 is equipped with an Enhanced Thematic Mapper, ETM+.
ETM+ brings a number of advantages over its predecessor, with a Panchromatic band with 15 metres resolution intrinsically registered with the multispectral bands, while the resolution of the thermal infrared has improved to 60m. There is an on-board Solid State Recorder (SSR) with 378 Gb (500 full scenes) of data capacity.
Eurimage Landsat data is divieded into two main categories: Pan-European (acquired by ESA stations) and World-wide. Currently, Landsat 5 is acquired by ESA only at Matera Ground Station
ESA Landsat 5 coverage
Landsat 5 worldwide coverage
The 16-day, 233-orbit cycle is the basis of Landsat World Reference System, a grid of paths and rows, with the paths representing the ground track of the satellite. The nominal scene centres identify Landsat images. A calendar is necessary to determine if a pass has taken place on a specific day
Landsat 7 Scene 195/028 and adjacent scenes
Landsat scene sizes
Pixels are not resampled, geometrically corrected or registered. Any radiometric artefacts are still present in any Level 0R image. This product is for users able to do all the processing themselves.
A radiometrically corrected ØR product, which corrects detector artifacts such as coherent noise, improves cosmetic artifacts such as banding, striping, and dropped lines or pixels, and is calibrated to integer radiance units, i.e. colour corrected. Radiometric corrections are not reversible. Pixels are not resampled, geometrically corrected or registered. This product also requires extensive processing by the user.
The Level 1G product should be considered the standard product for most users. It is radiometrically and geometrically corrected. No atmospheric corrections are applied to the images.
Residual error in the systematic 1G product is less than 250 metres for Landsat 7 (more for other Landsat missions) in flat areas at sea level. Absolute location is better (circa 100 metres) with post-pass processing using the definitive efemeris.
System Corrected images can be produced as path oriented (SYSCOR) or map oriented (GEOREF—for full scenes only) with north-up display.
The 1G System Corrected product does not employ ground control or relief models to obtain absolute geodetic accuracy. More accurate processing (up to orthocorrection with the use of GCPs and DEM) is available as an additional service.
Level 0R, RADCOR or 1R images have |
System Corrected (Level 1G) with aligned, resampled pixels |
The Landsat GTCE (Ground Terrain Corrected Enhanced) product is a rectified Landsat full frame. All images are geometrically processed using the USGS 30 arcseconds DEM GTOPO30, and control points collected on high quality reference data. The accuracy of the final product is below 50 meters RMSE, but in many areas is around 30 meters RMSE. GTCE products can be generated on Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 full scenes collected worldwide. The products are available also for floating scenes.
Reference system
The default reference system is UTM/WGS84. The UTM zone is chosen according to the longitude. The product is also available with client-defined reference system.
Accuracy
The processing is carried out on the basis of the USGS GTOPO30 30 arcseconds DEM and of the high accuracy reference data. The resulting accuracy is in the range 30-50 meters RMSE. Control points from ephemeris data are not used in the processing, due to the low declared accuracy achievable.
Pansharpened products are generated by merging the colour information contained in the 30-meters three visible (blue, green and red) or visible-infrared (green, near infrared, mid-infrared) multispectral bands with the geometrical information contained in the 15-meters panchromatic band. The result is a natural or false color pansharpened image, with 15 meters resolution. The processing is carried out by using an Eurimage proprietary pansharpening algorithm.
Landsat TM and ETM+ data is available in the following formats:
GeoTIFF, CEOS, FAST, HDF, NLAPS
The CEOS, FAST, HDF and NLAPS files are all BSQ (Band Sequential), with one file for each band. Landsat 5 MSS data from ESA comes in CEOS format, BIL (Band Interleaved), with one file for all bands.
In the CEOS, FAST, HDF and NLAPS formats the images are simply 8-bit integers (the CEOS file contains a 100 byte header). The differences are in the ancillary files that accompany the data: CEOS files have much more information, but it is harder to read (click here to download software for reading this information).
FAST, HDF and NLAPS files set out the key information more clearly. GeoTIFF (Geographic Tagged Image File Format) has only the image files in a georeferenced TIFF. This format should be ordered only for Level 1G System Corrected products with map orientation, ready to use for GIS applications..
Limited data set, including the complete USGS archive. Acquisitions planned by USGS on the basis of meteorological statistics and forecasts. Not programmable by customers.
Coverage: Europe, North Africa, part of the Middle East
Full, Quarter, Mini and Micro
Standard or floating (on request), inside or across frame, along track
Level ØR, only full standard scene
Level 1R/1G
Larger, complementary data set, based on routine continuous acquisitions at ESA Ground Stations, in order to guarantee the availability of all possible acquisitions over the pan-European and Mediterranean areas
Europe, North-West Africa, part of the Middle East
Full, Quarter, Mini and Micro
Standard or floating (on request), inside or across frame, along track
Level ØR; 1R/1G, Standard, Floating inside, across
Through a partnership agreement with the satellite operator, in the framework of the Ground Station Reception MoU, Eurimage is offering Landsat 7 World-wide data acquired through the Long-Term Acquisition Plan
Full Standard scenes only
Ordering via Eurimage Customer Service with Front Desk assistance
Level ØR, 1R/1G
• Eurimage brokerage agreements with International Ground Stations (IGS) provide its customers with a full choice of Landsat 7 world-wide data.
Ortho-rectified, pan-sharpened mosaic of 45 Landsat 7 natural-colour scenes covering all of Italy at 15m resolution. Go here for details.
Eurimage distributes, in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, Landsat data received at the European Space Agency ground receiving stations of Matera (Italy), Kiruna (Sweden) and Maspalomas (Canary Islands, Spain) — see map above. The archive contains MSS data from 1975 and TM data from the beginning of 1985.
Eurimage can also supply Worldwide (non-Pan-European) data from international ground stations aand other data suppliers. There may be small variations in data formats and pricing; full details can be provided by Eurimage Customer Service.
Data from the MSS have not been regularly acquired by any ground station since 1994. Archive data is available.
It is U.S. Government policy to make Landsat TM scenes acquired over the USA more than 10 years ago available in the public domain at the cost of reproduction. This is a rolling 10-year period, the scenes being made available daily from this archive as they reach 10 years of age. Although the scenes available are mainly over America, the archive also contains much data over Europe and other areas in the world. MSS data acquired between July 1972 and October 1992 is also available from the same archive.
Eurimage applies the same policy to full standard scenes of 10-year-old ESA data.
For complete details, download pdf of Landsat chapter from Eurimage Products and Services Guide
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