The Landsat 8 is ready for geospatial science and technology researchers and practitioners

The remarkable legacy of the Landsat series of satellites continues with Landsat 8, both in terms of operations and ready-to-supply data for the worldwide community of researchers and educators. This is also a significant on-going collaboration between NASA and Department of Interior United States Geological Survey (USGS). The Landsat 8 is orbiting the Earth every 99 minutes and images the entire Earth every 16 days in the same orbit previously used by Landsat 5. It is using Worldwide Reference System-2 (WRS-2) path/row system with these characteristics: Sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 705 km (438 mi), 233 orbit cycle; covers the entire globe every 16 days (except for the highest polar latitudes), Inclined 98.2° (slightly retrograde), Equatorial crossing time: 10:00 a.m. ± 15 minutes. The Landsat 8 sensors include: Operational Land Imager (OLI) with nine spectral bands, including a pan band: