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Landsat 9: More Than Just A Picture

2026-02-26 17:47

By Chris Burns, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

For over 50 years, the Landsat program has provided the longest continuous satellite record of Earth’s land surface from space. Landsat 9, launched in 2021, is the latest mission in this remarkable legacy — building on decades of Earth observation with upgraded technology, including enhanced radiometric resolution, improved signal-to-noise performance, and polar night thermal imaging. Working in tandem with Landsat 8 to map the entire planet every eight days, Landsat 9’s data is being fused with the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellites to enable near-daily global observations, delivering sharper, more detailed observations that help scientists and communities monitor a changing planet.

VIDEO SCRIPT

It started over 50 years ago with an idea:

A satellite, orbiting Earth, observing our planet’s surface, gathering data, day in, day out.

That idea gave birth to the Landsat program, a partnership between NASA and the US Geological Survey, the longest continuous record of Earth’s land surface from space.

Landsat 1’s launch in 1972 was the first link in a chain of 8 satellites, each one building upon the last.

And today, Landsat 9 carries that legacy forward.

Since its launch in 2021, Landsat 9 helping collect more scenes per day than any previous Landsat satellite mission. collects as many scenes per day as Landsats 5 & 7 combined.

Working in tandem with Landsat 8, the pair now collect nearly 1,500 scenes daily, creating a complete map of the planet’s land surface every 8 days.

It’s not just about scale — it’s about Landsat’s ability to revisit the same scene multiple times a month. With this pace of acquisitions, Landsat 9 helps track seasonal shifts in crops, the spread of wildfires, the aftermath of storms, and even rapid changes in glaciers and coastlines.

More images mean more data, fueling research and scientific applications around the world.

But when it comes to Landsat 9’s imagery, it’s not just about quantity – it’s about quality too.

While Landsat 9’s main design is nearly identical to Landsat 8’s, it’s able to collect data in greater detail thanks to an upgraded radiometric resolution — 14-bit instead of Landsat 8’s 12-bit.

Think of it like upgrading from a box of 4,000 crayons to one with 16,000 — every shade captured, every subtle detail sharper.

Landsat 9’s quadrupled radiometric sensitivity makes a real difference when capturing data over the planet’s brightest surfaces, like snow and ice, revealing subtle changes that might otherwise go unnoticed: shifts in ice extent, changes in how surfaces reflect sunlight, even the growth of glacial lakes forming where ice once stood.

Seeing more shades of detail is powerful, but it only matters if the picture itself is clear.

Landsat 9 not only sharpens what we can detect, it also cuts through the static, delivering a stronger signal-to-noise ratio, which means images that have less interference.

It’s like trying to hear a whisper in a noisy room — Landsat 9 quiets the static so we don’t miss anything important.

And that clarity makes a difference, especially over dark surfaces like water which can harbor harmful algal blooms that can spread quickly, threatening drinking water supplies, local wildlife and even human safety.

By spotting these blooms with greater sensitivity, Landsat 9 gives communities and scientists more reliable and actionable information to respond.

Landsat 9 doesn’t clock out when the sun goes down – its onboard thermal sensor, TIRS, measures our planet’s surface heat even in darkness.

That means we can monitor urban heat islands, volcanic hotspots, and water temperature at night.

Since 2022, the US Geological Survey’s special request data program has implemented the Landsat Extended Acquisition of the Poles, or LEAP for short, taking advantage of Landsat 9’s ability to see in the dark to acquire imagery in polar regions year-round when the sun can set for up to six months at the poles.

Together with Landsat 8, the satellites can detect features like meltwater, cracks, and even open water within ice under low light conditions.

The enhanced coverage helps scientists better monitor ice dynamics and seasonal changes in polar regions, detecting calving events, surface melt, and changes in sea ice extent even during the dark months.

Landsat 9 isn’t working alone — it’s part of a global team of satellites, where collaboration across agencies and nations is giving us the clearest, most consistent view of Earth yet.

NASA’s Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 project fuses data from Landsats 8 & 9 with that of the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 A,B and C satellites to form a seamless, consistent surface reflectance record.

In this “virtual constellation,” Landsat 9 contributes its spectral precision and calibrated data, helping enable global observations every 1-2 days at 30-meter resolution.

Landsat 9’s high fidelity, radiometric stability, and continuity anchor HLS, ensuring that the fused product maintains the scientific integrity that Landsat users expect.

Landsat 9 is more than just today’s mission — it’s part of the foundation for the future.

Through the Sustainable Land Imaging program, NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey aims to preserve our ability to keep a continuous, reliable record of Earth’s land for decades to come.

That means not just flying satellites, but building the technology, partnerships, and planning needed to keep the record unbroken.

Within SLI, NASA’s Sustainable Land Imaging–Technology initiative is testing new instruments that could make future missions smaller, more capable, and more efficient.

Landsat 9 is NASA’s first SLI mission and plays a key role here, setting the benchmark for data quality and coverage, proving what works today and guiding the technologies of tomorrow.

Its stability and precision are hallmarks of previous lessons learned, allowing scientists to trust the record across decades, and its success helps guide the innovations that will come next.

For more than half a century, Landsat satellites have given us an unbroken record of our changing planet.

In just four years, Landsat 9 has brought that vision into even sharper focus — capturing millions of scenes, advancing how we track water, ice, and land, and strengthening the world’s longest Earth-observation record.

It’s not just another satellite in orbit. It’s a bridge — carrying the Landsat legacy forward with enhanced technology while preparing the foundation for the future of sustainable land imaging.

Because with Landsat, every image is more than a picture — it’s a calibrated digital record, providing knowledge we can use to understand, protect, and sustain life on Earth.

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Inside Project Hail Mary

2026-02-26 17:19

At right, a man in a blue flight suit with patches on it takes a selfie with his cell phone. He is in the photo, as well as panel members and the large audience. They are in an auditorium. In the far background, there is a NASA "meatball" insignia and the letters "JPL" on the wall.

NASA/Dan Goods

NASA astronaut and deputy director of the Flight Operations Directorate Kjell Lindgren takes a selfie with panelists and the audience at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Feb. 25, 2026. Actors Ryan Gosling and Sandra Huller, screenwriter Drew Goddard, directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, and producer and writer of the “Project Hail Mary” novel Andy Weir stopped by NASA JPL to talk about their experience making the movie and the collaboration between scientists and creative media.

NASA supported the creative team behind the movie with subject matter experts who answered questions from the crew, and Lindgren met with Gosling during filming to share insights on human spaceflight and being an astronaut.

Image credit: NASA/Dan Goods

NASA Invites Media to Discuss Next Steps for Artemis Campaign

2026-02-26 16:07

Image shows the inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026, with NASA's Space Launch System rocket with Orion's spacecraft atop for NASA's Artemis II mission.

NASA’s crawler-transporter 2, carrying NASA’s Artemis II SLS (Space Launch System) rocket with the Orion spacecraft, arrives Feb. 25, 2026, inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to troubleshoot the flow of helium to the rocket’s upper stage, the interim cryogenic propulsion stage. Once complete, the SLS rocket will roll back to Launch Complex 39B to prepare to launch four astronauts around the Moon and back for the Artemis II test flight.

Credit: NASA/Cory Huston

With rollback of NASA’s Artemis II SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft to the Vehicle Assembly Building complete, the agency will host a news conference at 10 a.m. EST on Friday, Feb. 27. Live from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, leadership will discuss the work ahead for the test flight, as well as provide a broader update on the Artemis campaign.

The news conference will stream on NASA’s YouTube channel. An instant replay will be available online. Learn how to watch NASA content on a variety of platforms, including social media.

NASA participants include:

Administrator Jared Isaacman
Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya
Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate

This event is open to in-person for media previously credentialed at NASA Kennedy for the Artemis II launch. To participate virtually, media must RSVP for call details no later than 30 minutes prior to the start of the event to the newsroom at NASA Kennedy: ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov. NASA’s media credentialing policy is online.

For more about NASA’s Artemis campaign, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov

-end-

Bethany Stevens / Cheryl Warner
NASA Headquarters
202-358-1600
bethany.c.stevens@nasa.gov / cheryl.m.warner@nasa.gov

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Last Updated

Feb 26, 2026

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Jessica Taveau

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NASA’s ESCAPADE Ready to Study Space Weather from Earth to Mars

2026-02-26 15:24

6 Min Read

NASA’s ESCAPADE Ready to Study Space Weather from Earth to Mars

An animation showing Mars against a black background. Two spacecraft � like short gray cyclinders with flat panels on the right and left � orbit the planet.

An artist’s concept shows the two ESCAPADE spacecraft at Mars. The ESCAPADE mission is the first to coordinate two spacecraft in orbit around a planet other than Earth.

Credits:
James Rattray/Rocket Lab USA

Mars is not what it used to be. Once warm, watery, and blanketed by a thick atmosphere, today the Red Planet is cold, dry, and draped by a thin atmospheric veil.

The main culprit is a relentless stream of particles from the Sun, known as the solar wind. Over billions of years, the solar wind has stripped away much of the Martian atmosphere, causing the planet to cool and its surface water to evaporate.

Now, NASA’s ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) mission, which launched on Nov. 13, 2025, has turned on the science instruments that will investigate how this happened and how the Sun continues to influence the Red Planet. The science instruments, which are all operating as of Feb. 25, also will study space weather in new ways near Earth and on the way to Mars.

At Mars, ESCAPADE’s findings could also help NASA protect future explorers from the harsh Martian conditions.

“The pioneering ESCAPADE duo will not only investigate the Sun’s role in transforming Mars into an uninhabitable planet, but also will help inform the development of space weather protocols for solar events directed at Mars during future human missions to the Red Planet,” said Joe Westlake, heliophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “By joining the heliophysics fleet of missions across the solar system, ESCAPADE will be another weather station making humans and technology in space safer and more successful.”

A rocket rises above a launch pad on the Florida coast, with green land on the lower left, blue ocean on the upper right, and a strip of brown beach along the coastline in between. On the ground below the rocket, launch towers are enveloped by white clouds from the launch. A long blue-orange exhaust plume extends downward from the rocket.

NASA’s ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) mission launched on Nov. 13, 2025, atop a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket at Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Blue Origin

First of its kind

With its twin spacecraft, ESCAPADE is the first science mission to coordinate two orbiters around Mars, gaining a perspective we’ve never had before. Together, the ESCAPADE twins will measure short-term changes in the magnetized environment around Mars, called the magnetosphere, and uncover real-time processes driving the planet’s atmospheric escape.

“Having two spacecraft is going to help us understand cause and effect — how the solar wind, when it comes to Mars, interacts with the magnetic field,” said Michele Cash, ESCAPADE program scientist at NASA Headquarters.

The ESCAPADE orbiters build on earlier Mars missions that have studied Mars’ atmosphere, but with just one spacecraft.

“The ESCAPADE mission is a game changer,” said Rob Lillis, the mission’s principal investigator at the University of California, Berkeley. “It gives us what you might call a stereo perspective — two different vantage points simultaneously.”

Once ESCAPADE reaches Mars, its twin spacecraft will follow each other in the same orbit, passing over the same areas at different times to uncover when and where changes are happening.

“When we have two spacecraft crossing those regions in quick succession, we can monitor how those regions vary on timescales as short as two minutes,” Lillis said. “This will allow us to make measurements we could never make before.”

After six months, the two spacecraft will shift into different orbits, with one traveling farther from Mars and the other staying closer to it. Planned to last for five months, this second formation aims to study the solar wind and Martian magnetosphere simultaneously, allowing scientists to investigate how Mars responds to the solar wind in real time.

“Prior spacecraft could either be in the upstream solar wind, or they could be close to the planet measuring its magnetosphere,” Lillis said, “but ESCAPADE allows us to be in two places at once and to simultaneously measure the cause and the effect.”

Preparing for human exploration

When people set foot on Mars, they will not be as well protected from solar radiation as their family and friends on Earth.

Earth can withstand the solar wind’s ceaseless onslaught because it has a hardy magnetic field that shields us from the Sun’s energetic particles. However, Mars’ once robust magnetic field has weakened over time. Today it’s a patchwork of localized magnetism in the planet’s crust along with an ever-changing magnetic field generated by the solar wind’s interaction with charged particles in Mars’ upper atmosphere.

An illustration shows Mars in the lower right and the Sun in the upper left against a black, starry background. Yellow magnetic field lines wrap around Mars. In a couple places on Mars, blue lines loop in and out of the Martian surface. At the peak of some of the blue loops are white, starlike sparks. Red magnetic field lines extend from the dark side of Mars, facing away from the Sun, on the lower right.

Mars has a hybrid magnetosphere made up of an induced magnetic field from the solar wind and crustal magnetic fields from the planet’s surface. In this artist’s concept yellow lines represent magnetic field lines from the Sun carried by the solar wind and blue lines represent Martian surface magnetic fields. White sparks indicate reconnection activity, where field lines break and reconnect, and red lines are reconnected magnetic fields that link the Martian surface to space.
Anil Rao/Univ. of Colorado/MAVEN/NASA GSFC

This “hybrid” magnetosphere provides little protection against the atmosphere-stripping force of the solar wind. This, plus Mars’ thin atmosphere, allows the Sun’s energetic particles to easily reach the Martian surface, endangering future human explorers there.

“Before we send humans to Mars, we need to understand what type of environment these astronauts are going to encounter,” Cash said.

Additionally, ESCAPADE will provide more information about Mars’ ionosphere — part of the upper atmosphere that future astronauts will use to send radio and navigation signals around the planet, as we do on Earth.

“If we ever want GPS at Mars or long-distance communications, we need to understand the ionosphere,” Lillis said.

Unique journey to Mars

Previous Mars missions have launched when Earth and Mars are aligned in their orbits, which only happens every 26 months. But ESCAPADE launched early, pioneering a new strategy that allows Mars-bound spacecraft to launch almost anytime.

Instead of heading directly to Mars, ESCAPADE’s spacecraft are first looping around a location in space a million miles from Earth called Lagrange point 2. In November 2026, when Earth and Mars are aligned, the ESCAPADE spacecraft will return to Earth and use our planet’s gravity to slingshot themselves toward Mars for a September 2027 arrival.

An illustration shows a large kidney-bean-shaped orbital path that leaves Earth, at the center, loops upward and then down to the right around a point marked L2, which is to the right of Earth. The path continues downward and then comes back up between Earth and L2 and up again before looping sharply back down toward Earth. After returning to Earth, the line splits into two lines, in blue and gold, that shoot up to the right and are labeled

NASA’s two ESCAPADE spacecraft are not traveling directly from Earth to Mars but are first making a kidney-bean-shaped loop around a location in space called Lagrange point 2 (L2). A small black triangle shows approximately where the spacecraft were on Feb. 24, 2026. In November 2026, when Earth and Mars are more closely aligned in their orbits, the spacecraft will return to Earth and use our planet’s gravity to slingshot their way to Mars.

Advanced Space

This unique “loiter” orbit will extend approximately 2 million miles from our planet, making the ESCAPADE spacecraft the first to fly through a previously unexplored region of Earth’s distant magnetotail, part of Earth’s magnetosphere opposite the Sun.

“We’re going to be doing some discovery science,” Lillis said. “No one has ever measured Earth’s tail this far away.”

A visualization shows Earth as a small sphere near the top surrounded by a large, jellyfish-like structure with a bright ring around Earth and a long, fainter, tail-like structure extending downward. Blue magnetic field lines extend downward away from Earth through the tail, and a few magnetic field lines extend upward from Earth in the opposite direction. Two short cyan streaks appear to cross the tail diagonally near the bottom, with each streak having a bright dot on the upper right, representing the ESCAPADE spacecraft.

The solar wind compresses the Sunward side of Earth’s magnetosphere and stretches the opposite side into a long tail, called the magnetotail. The two ESCAPADE spacecraft (indicated here in cyan) will be the first to fly through the distant part of Earth’s magnetotail, about 1.2 million miles from Earth, before heading to Mars.

NASA Scientific Visualization Studio

Later, during their 10-month cruise to Mars, ESCAPADE’s two spacecraft will study solar wind and the interplanetary magnetic environment that Mars-bound astronauts will also traverse, preparing for future journeys to the Red Planet.

The ESCAPADE mission is funded by NASA’s Heliophysics Division and is part of the NASA Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration program. UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory leads the mission with key partners Rocket Lab; NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; Advanced Space; and Blue Origin.

by Vanessa Thomas
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

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Last Updated

Feb 26, 2026

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NASA Names Acting Leaders for Two Key Human Spaceflight Roles

2026-02-26 15:08

Joel Montalbano, International Space Station Program Manager

Joel Montalbano, acting associate administrator for NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate

NASA

Editor’s note: This release was updated Thursday, Feb. 26 to reflect the effective date of the leadership changes.

On Thursday, NASA announced Joel Montalbano will serve as the acting associate administrator for the Space Operations Mission Directorate (SOMD) at NASA Headquarters in Washington, and Dana Hutcherson will serve as the acting program manager of the Commercial Crew Program, effective immediately.

SOMD’s programs and activities include the Commercial Crew Program, the Commercial Low Earth Orbit Program, the Human Research Program, the International Space Station Program, the Launch Services Program, the Rocket Propulsion Test Program, the Space Communications and Navigation Program, Space Sustainability, and Human Spaceflight Capabilities.

Both leaders were previously serving as deputies in their respective roles.

“Strong leadership is essential to advancing NASA’s mission, and Joel Montalbano and Dana Hutcherson are exceptionally well-qualified to serve in these acting roles,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “Their experience and commitment will help ensure we deliver on the President’s National Space Policy, maintain American leadership in low Earth orbit, and build the capabilities required to achieve the near-impossible beyond it.”

Kenneth Bowersox previously announced his retirement, effective Friday, March 6.

Key priorities for Montalbano will include establishing a low Earth orbit economy ahead of retiring the International Space Station and maintaining America’s superiority in space.

Prior to his positions at headquarters, Montalbano served as program manager of the International Space Station at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where he was responsible for the overall management, development, integration, and operation of the orbiting laboratory. He also has served as a variety of other roles, including deputy program manager for the International Space Station Program Office; director of NASA’s Human Space Flight Program in Russia; and a NASA flight director. He started his career at Rockwell in 1988 and became a NASA civil servant that same year.

Over the course of his career, he has received many honors, including the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, Johnson Space Center Directors Commendation, Rank of Meritorious Executive, conferred by the President of the United States, NASA Exceptional Service Medal (twice), the Superior Accomplishment Award, NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal, Rotary Space Award Nominee, and more.

Montalbano received a bachelor’s degree in aerospace, aeronautical, and astronautical engineering from Iowa State University.

Through CCP, Hutcherson will continue her work with the American aerospace industry to develop safe, reliable and cost-effective crew transportation systems for low Earth orbit destinations, including the International Space Station. She is responsible for the facilitation of spacecraft development, certification, and operations to enable the safe transportation of NASA astronauts for the Commercial Crew Program.

Hutcherson previously served as deputy manager of the CCP Systems Engineering and Integration Office, and as deputy manager of the program’s Launch Vehicle Systems Office. She also has served as a NASA flow director within the Launch Vehicle Processing Directorate at Kennedy, and other roles at NASA. Prior to NASA, she began her career with United Space Alliance as an airframe engineer.

Hutcherson has received numerous prestigious honors including Meritorious Presidential Rank Award, NASA’s Space Flight Awareness Leadership Award, and Outstanding Leadership Medal.

She holds a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, and a master of science in industrial engineering of engineering management from the University of Central Florida in Orlando.