Mission Success! Celebrating Landsat 9’s Five-Year Design Life Milestone

September 29, 2026

A 3D artist rendering of the Landsat 9 spacecraft with the Earth underneath.

The Landsat 9 mission completed its five-year design life on Sunday, September 27, 2026. Landsat 9's data are essential for studying change over time to better understand our planet and make informed decisions about Earth’s resources and environment.

Reaching a Mission Milestone

“Landsat 9 leverages a workforce and technical innovations that NASA excels at providing. These data are an invaluable resource, providing critical information about our home planet so we can manage, live, and thrive with the limited resources that exist here.”

—Chris Neigh, Landsat 9 Project Scientist

Mission Success! Celebrating Landsat 9’s Five-Year Design Life Milestone

This heatmap displays the requests for Landsat Provisional Actual Evapotranspiration (ETa) products from 2020 through 2025.

September 21, 2026

Landsat Products Support Water Management Worldwide

Source: USGS EROS

When it comes to the world’s water supply, effective management is vital. Using Landsat observations, the Provisional Actual Evapotranspiration product estimates Actual Evapotranspiration, or ETa, the movement of water from the land surface and plants into the atmosphere.

PUBLICATION SPOTLIGHT

Landsat Instrument Suite (LandIS) sensor design for the Landsat 10 mission

| Montanaro et al., 2026

From estimating crop yields and detecting drought to mapping wildfires and tracking urban heat islands, critical decisions about Earth's resources depend on consistent satellite measurements. The next generation of Landsat instruments is being designed by Raytheon to make those measurements more precise and useful. In Remote Sensing of Environment, Montanaro et al., 2026, describe the Landsat instrument Suite (LandIS), the imaging sensor planned for the Landsat 10 mission. The new suite of instruments will collect Earth observations in 26 spectral bands that span visible, near-infrared, shortwave-infrared, and thermal-infrared wavelengths and resolutions of 10, 20, or 60 meters, depending on the band. Of the 26 channels, ten are new relative to earlier Landsat instruments; several of these are intended to complement the Sentinel-2 satellite constellation, while the heritage Landsat bands are retained with improved spectral and instrument specifications. The 26-band, super-spectral capability of LandIS is designed to support critical applications that range from vegetation and water monitoring to studies of soil, atmospheric conditions, surface temperature, and ecosystem change. By extending Landsat's dependable, 50+ year record, LandIS will help decision makers distinguish short-term events from long-term environmental trends and respond more effectively to those changes. Ultimately, LandIS will provide precise data for decision making on the ground that benefits humans, communities, ecosystems, farms, and water supplies.

Diagram of the LandIS OMA outer structure (left) and interior cutaway (right).

The opto-mechanical assembly (OMA) structure contains all optical, mechanical, and electronic components of LandIS and fits within the imposed size constraints. Image credit: Montanaro et al., 2026

Find more selected Landsat publications on our website.

NASA's Earth Observatory

Selected Landsat Images

September 18, 2026

Lake Powell Drops to Record-Low Levels

Snow drought and unusually warm temperatures in the Colorado Basin in 2026 helped drive down reservoir water storage in the U.S. West.

Water in Lake Powell is at record-low levels and looks like a wide river winding through a light orange desert landscape. The Glen Canyon Dam and the town of Page, Arizona, are visible in the lower left.

September 15, 2026

An Accidental Impact Crater Discovery

An amateur astronomer scouting online satellite maps for campsites in Quebec found an impact crater instead.

Though subtle, a circular indentation with Lake Marsal near the center is visible in the middle of a mostly green landscape with textured terrain and many lakes.

September 8, 2026

The Otherworldly Geology of Vasquez Rocks

Layers of sedimentary rock that jut from the Soledad Basin at surprising angles have long enthralled television and film producers, including the team behind Star Trek.

In this false-color image, areas with more extensive vegetation on the Sierra Pelona retain more moisture than the hills surrounding Agua Dulce, making the Sierra Pelona appear dark green in comparison to the rusty brown coloration of the lower hills. Vasquez Rocks appears as a patch of curved gray stripes near the center of the image.

September 7, 2026

A Bright Spot at Mount Michael

With austral winter nearing its end, clouds cleared for a satellite view of volcanic activity in the remote South Atlantic.

A small ice- and snow-covered island with an active volcanic crater at its center is surrounded by drifting pieces of sea ice. A thermal signal and small plume appear in the crater, and ash darkens the snow on the volcano’s northern slopes.

Enhancing Vegetation Indices with Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2

Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) image of the Cottonwood Fire area in Utah, acquired after the fire by Landsat 8 on June 29, 2026. Healthy vegetation appears in shades of teal, while burn scars appear brown and orange.

The updated HLS-VI explainer webpage highlights the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), the Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR), and the Normalized Burn Ratio 2 (NBR) and their

critical roles in monitoring global vegetation health. The frequent revisit times of HLS data easily captures rapid changes to croplands, forests, and other land cover types.

+ Explore more

Did someone forward this newsletter to you? Subscribe here if you'd like to be on our mailing list.