Landsat images

Serge Andrefouet serge at carbon.marine.usf.edu
Wed Mar 3 09:45:13 EST 1999


The launch date for Landsat 7 (L7) satellite may still have some degree of
fluidity but is planned now for APRIL 15 1999. One of the missions of L7
is to provide images for the NASA Long Term Acquisition Plan (LTAP) to
support scientific research, with ideally the acquisition of at least 200
images per day over various and varying areas of the globe for downloading
to the US (Foreign Ground Stations may collect additional data of course).
Images will be available at a low cost (less than $300/scene). The earth
observing instrument on L7, the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+),
replicates the capabilities of the Thematic Mapper instruments on Landsats
4 and 5*. The ETM+ also includes new features that make it a more
versatile and efficient instrument for global change studies, land cover
monitoring and assessment, and large area mapping than its design
forebears.  Landsat 7 and ETM+ characteristics are :

 Number of Bands: 8

 Spectral Range(microns):
 Band 1: .45 to .515
 Band 2: .525 to .605
 Band 3: .63 to .690
 Band 4: .75 to .90
 Band 5: 1.55 to 1.75
 Band 6: 10.40 to 12.5 (Thermal infra-red channel)
 Band 7: 2.09 to 2.35
 Band 8 (Panchromatic): .52 to .90

 Ground Resolution (meters)
 Band 1: 30 m
 Band 2: 30 m
 Band 3: 30 m
 Band 4: 30 m
 Band 5: 30 m
 Band 6: 60 m
 Band 7: 30 m
 Band 8: 15 m

 Swath width:185 kilometers
 Repeat coverage interval:16 days (233 orbits)
 Altitude:705 kilometers
 Quantization:Best 8 of 9 bits
 On-board data storage:~375 Gb (solid state)
 Inclination:Sun-synchronous, 98.2 degrees
 Equatorial crossing:Descending node; 10:00am +/- 15 min.
 Launch vehicle:Delta II Launch date:April 1999
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

 For the moment, the highest priorities of the LTAP acquisitions are for
the United-States, and selected land targets elsewhere. The goal is to
obtain quasi-global, seasonal coverage.

 Several coastal zones worldwide are already integrated in the LTAP
dataset.  They may include reefs areas that can be studied using typically
the bands 1, 2, 3, 4 and 8. To improve the coverage of coral reefs zones,
35 specific targets reefs were recently added to the list of potential
sites. However, coverage of these sites is by no means guaranteed and an
increase in their priorities is required!

 The aim of this mail is to signal to the community of coral reef researcher
 that their site of study can be added to the LTAP database
 For this, we need:
 1/ the location of your area (lat/long) to check if it is already in a
 coastal LTAP zone or if it can be one of the new 35 sites (especially
 dedicated to remote oceanic places)
 2/ a short description of your projects, including:
 - a short scientific history of the site (references of previous studies
 will be enough)
 - objectives,
 - schedules,
 - names of the scientists and institutes that are involved in the project
 - your plans to use remote sensing data (mapping, change detection,
 catastrophic assessment=85)

 We understand that some applications, related to catastrophic impacts for
 example (cyclones, lagoon blooms, bleaching=85) can not be described as
 scheduled projects , but if a site is a LTAP site, it will be easier to get
 reference images that will be completed by images during or just after the
 events. The monitoring sites, whatever the organization (ICRI, GCRMN,
 CARICOMP, ReefCheck,=85), are of course suitable for LTAP.
 Defining high sensitive areas will also help to improve the priority for
 coral reef acquisition.

 Because of the imminence of the launch of L7, its software will be frozen
 in few weeks. The definition of these 35 sites needs to be done very
 quickly. So, people interested by images for their projects are encouraged
 to response to this offer, ideally during the next week (-> before 9th
March).

 For further questions and for application, you can answer directly to
 carbon at marine.usf.edu or serge at carbon.marine.usf.edu
 An assessment of all the answers and the proposition to the Landsat program
 for the final LTAP dataset will be mailed later on the Coral-List.

Cheers,

 Serge Andrefouet

Serge Andrefouet
Department of Marine Science
Remote Sensing/ Biological Oceanography
University of South Florida             =20
140, 7th Av. South                      =20
St Petersburg=20
FL 33701

phone: (727) 553-1186
fax:   (727) 553-1103
E-mail: serge at carbon.marine.usf.edu



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