Launch of the Landsat 9 Earth-Observing Satellite

live from the central coast of california this is nasa's launch coverage of landsat 9. [Music] my so [Music] [Music] in just about 40 minutes this atlas v rocket will launch landsat 9 into space to show us earth from above and help us take better care of our home planet the earth observation satellite will add to a decades-long portfolio of data on our forests farms cities and water welcome and thank you for joining us here at vandenberg space force base on the central coast of california for the 2000's launch from this military base since 1958 i'm your host marie lewis socially distanced and fully vaccinated against coven 19. that is why i am not wearing a mask launch is set for 11 12 this morning pacific time and that puts us at l minus 40 minutes 20 seconds and counting the first landsat satellite launched in 1972 kicking off an uninterrupted stream of data for almost 50 years and landsat 9 will continue that streak today right now we are go for launch but we'll get an update from launch control in just a minute first some key things to know about today's mission at least one landsat satellite has been in orbit continuously since 1972. the program holds the record for the longest continuous observation of earth from space the satellite monitors natural and economic resources from orbit leaders around the world use landsat data to understand climate change manage agriculture allocate water resources and respond to natural disasters and the entire landsat archive is free and open to the public landsat is a joint mission between nasa and the u.s geological survey and we'll talk to a representative of the usgs in just a little bit we'll also tell you about a woman known as the mother of landsat and how her work changed the way we see earth we'll show you how the satellite works turning light into data for scientists and researchers we'll take a closer look at how the data is used for mapping the shrinking rainforest to glacial recession to managing our food supply and measuring the impact of natural disasters which have been particularly devastating in recent days so we've got a ton of signs to get to and nasa edges blair allen and franklin fitzgerald are starin standing by hi guys they're going to help us uh with some of that science and also nasa's daryl nail and mick woltman who you see in the masks uh inside mission control they are there monitoring the countdown and guys we're going to go over to you to see how it's going daryl and mick yeah welcome into the mission director center marie where behind me you can see the big screens of everything that's happening we have the top leadership of nasa here along with usgs and the secretary of the interior along with other special guests as you mentioned we are now l minus 38 minutes and counting until launch at 11 12 a.m pacific time 2 12 p.m eastern time and we've got a 29 minute window so far things have been going pretty good but make it's been reported it's out on social media there was a little issue that they were working yeah the team was performing cryogenic tanking and during that tanking what we call our fast fill sequence the team had to work through some issues with the valve they were able to resolve that get out of fast fill and into slow fill or what we refer to as topping now for cryogenics and everything is back on track we're running roughly about five to six minutes behind for one of ours but that is exactly why we're in this coming up hold we'll be able to use some of that hold time to finish up that work let's talk about that hold because that's a good time to go ahead and mention that right we are just minutes away from going into an l minus 34 hold and the t clock and the l clock will be a little different can you explain that yeah absolutely darrell the l clock is what we refer to as time to launch this this clock continues to count throughout all the operations and it includes the built-in hold times that we talked about the t-minus four hole being 30 minutes the t-clock is what we refer to as the terminal clock which tells the team to prepare their tasks at certain times keep things going but this clock does stop during those 30 minute holds both clocks will sync up at l minus and t minus four minutes where everything then starts happening pretty fast by the team and we get down to t0 or liftoff this morning and for the purposes of our audience and our broadcast you will see that l clock in the upper left hand part of your screen currently counting down at 36 minutes and counting we will have that for you that will go all the way down to zero a convenient way to see that also our mission milestones we've got listed across the bottom of the screen we will then make our way and progress through each of those milestones some of the big ones the polling liftoff of course booster cutoff and centaur cutoff a look out at the pad and you can see atlas 5 is stacked and ready to go landsat 9 at the very top today mick this is flying in the 401 configuration explain that for me real quick yeah darryl the 401 configuration is the most common configuration flown by united launch alliance it first flew in august of 2002 and the 401 what that designates is the size of the payload fairing that's used it also the number of solid rocket boosters that are required for the mission or what mission boot extra boost that is needed and then the last number being the number of centaur or second stage engines that are needed for the mission today so for landsat 9 we are flying to 401 which is a four meter fairing zero solids and one rl10 engine to get us to space and as you look outside and see that view it might look like the weather is bad in fact there are clouds there is marine layer and there's some fog with even a little bit of smoke coming in from the sequoia national forest a fire there burning about 150 miles northwest of us but that is not expected to impact launch we are 90 percent go with weather we'll talk more about that in a bit for now we'll send it back to marine all right thanks daryl and mick we are now at l minus 34 minutes 59 seconds and counting and landsat 9 will collect the highest quality data ever recorded by a landsat satellite these new measurements can be compared to older ones to paint a picture of how our earth is changing take a look soaring high above our home planet landsat 9 will provide critical data on how earth is changing circling the globe every 99 minutes 14 orbits a day continuing decades of observations the impact of the landsat record is the sheer amount of information we've collected all across the world since 1972 and it is high quality science caliber data enabling us to accurately track changes over time now 50 years of las vegas expanding may be fairly simple to notice but we can also observe short-term changes like the growth of farm crops through a season in south central kansas with more than one landsat satellite in orbit plus the european sentinel-2 satellites we will get data several times each week improving our ability to track crop health and more the temperature measurements from landsat 9 will be used to calculate how much water was used by each farm field the central platte natural resources district like many throughout the western united states relies on landsat data to manage irrigation and increase water efficiency [Music] landsat 9 will also improve monitoring of coastal waters the increased precision and data sent back from landsat 9 will allow finer distinctions in the levels of light reflected from water making it easier to identify any pollutants that are present around the globe growing population and expanding development result in higher amounts of runoff damaging sensitive near-shore ecosystems landsat's long history lets us look into the past to see the effects of land use changes [Music] the consequences of climate change can also be seen in landsat's long data record scientists have used landsat to track shrinking glaciers for decades and landsat 9 will continue that effort the glaciers in the himalayas are a key water source for billions of people in south asia due to global warming the increased melt water collects in large lakes at high altitudes and poses a flooding risk to downstream villages landsat data is essential to monitor the growth of these lakes because of their location glaciers are not easy to study in person but landsat's view from space allows us to study glaciers all around the globe landsat 9's improvements will make it easier to see features on the glacier surface with that we can better track how fast the glacier is moving knowing the velocity of the ice now and how it has changed over the past decades helps us forecast likely contributions to rising sea levels in a changing climate landsat 9 joins landsat 8 to continue the unbroken string of landsat data for five decades we have relied on landsat's high caliber science quality observations to understand and protect our home planet and while landsat 9 begins sending back data we are already planning for the next evolution in the landsat program now that we've seen what landsat 9 will do let's take a closer look at the spacecraft itself landsat 9 is 15 feet tall 10 feet deep and 10 feet long once in orbit it will deploy a 32 foot long solar panel and 4 foot long earth shield with fuel it weighs almost 7 200 pounds the satellite has two main instruments operational land imager 2 for reflective band data and thermal infrared sensor 2 for thermal infrared bands it will capture 700 photos each day and travel nearly 17 000 miles per hour all right we have a very special guest uh joining us who you may recognize from the movie kong skull island actor mark evan jackson thank you so much for joining us also known as landsat steve in that film i was known as landsat yes and you have the jacket on too i do i have a bonafide screen used prop a screen use piece of wardrobe love it so in the movie um you played a landsat researcher surveying a fictional skull island uh vandenberg looks spectacularly like that fictional skull uh island this morning and we might see kong coming out of the distance i'll be very vigilant anything could happen so you actually got a chance to see the rocket up close yesterday tell us about that it's stunning i mean it's legitimately breathtaking and um and a really special opportunity to think about uh being so close to something that you know within a day is going to be headed for space and within the within the fairing something that's going to live on for you know many many years gathering data as an uh earth observation satellite i'm the the full culmination of what it means you know to be at this stage of the game ready to launch is so remarkable the the science and the engineering and the creativity and the curiosity and the ambition and collaboration that that leads to this day is i mean it's legitimately inspiring how much did you know if anything about landsat before you played the character landsat steve and how does that compare to what you know about the program now i'm embarrassed to admit that i was completely unaware of landsat as an entity uh prior to getting this role in the film but uh immediately began looking into what it meant to uh to be landsat and to be a landsat scientist and uh hollywood does a very good job of doing their research some of our hand props are shown to some landsat actual landsat scientists and they are very bewildered to go like a lot of this is right like a lot of this is accurate um now i'm fascinated by the goings-on at landsat like it's so remarkable to think about uh the nearly 50 years of continuous observation and data gathering and uh and also that all of landsat's data is available and free to the public into industry and and people are able to access it and use it um to see how our planet is sadly changing of course and now you're going to be watching launch just feet from where we're sitting over here hopefully uh this marine layer will clear out enough so that we can we're starting to see the launch pad it's a little better than it was a couple hours ago i feel very good about it yeah i think i think things are heading in a good direction all right well mark evan jackson thank you so much for joining us we hope you enjoyed the launch today thank you very much all right let's go over to daryl and mick now for a check of the launch weather forecast daryl all right thank you marie and good to see that landsat steve is doing much better since we last saw him on kong skull island he was getting flattened yeah he looks a lot better than he did in that final scene glad to have him here today yeah he was laying flat steve after that movie so now he's back to his normal self good to see great interview thanks for that the weather briefing just happened we just got some news that is great of course the 90 go is still on our launch weather officer addison nichols saying that essentially we are looking great even though when you look outside it doesn't look all that fantastic our progress bar showing that we are at the weather briefing and we just had it take a look at the satellite we can show you a couple things are in play here two weather features along the central coast right to the left there's a upper level low that's squeezing to the right a monsoonal low and so in between we've got some calm winds and a thick marine layer those don't affect launch so right at t zero where ninety percent go very small concern for surface winds and again just a minor factor mick yeah absolutely daryl these uh weather looks great here for us in vandenberg today so glad to see weather's cooperating with us unfortunately the 30th space launch delta forecast deteriorates significantly tomorrow which is the backup day because you see in this loop that cold front will play bigger tomorrow than it does today and in fact it's only a 40 go because ground winds will be gusting up to 24 knots you can see in the upper left-hand part of your screen that upper level low it will drop down and winds will increase and that will put us in a situation where we don't want to be meg yeah absolutely those wins would be bad for us so for the launch vehicle design and launch liftoff and control of the vehicle so let's hope we get off today so we hope that that will happen and looking back out to the pad you can see there's some fog there's even some smoke from nearby fires making a little bit of a haze but we are go for launch we'll send it back um actually we'll talk a little bit about uh lsp in a future segment but for now let's go back to marie all right thanks guys we are at l minus 25 minutes 46 seconds and counting until liftoff of the ninth earth observation satellite uh and as we mentioned this program dates back almost half a century here's an animation we're about to show you of the timeline of the landsat program starting with landsat 1. it launched back in 1972 and it takes us all the way through landsat 9 of course launching today the hash lines for landsat 7 through 9 indicate the uncertain lifespan of the satellites landsat 6 failed to reach orbit after launch still it's hard to overstate the value of the landsat archive of the past 49 years one more history lesson before our next guest take a look at a photo we have from 1971 inside the launch control center at kennedy space center there it is over on the florida coast this is when apollo 15 was preparing to launch and the man on the far right is dr james fletcher he was the nasa administrator at the time and as administrator he would go on to predict that if there were one space age development that would save the world it would be landsat 50 years ago the u.s geological survey had an idea satellites orbiting earth that could help us monitor our natural resources today the landsat program is jointly managed by nasa and the usgs providing an unparalleled record of earth's changing landscapes for the benefit of all 50 years of satellites [Music] 50 years of life-changing data one legacy continued with landsat 9. we have a special guest standing by now with nasa edge's blair allen just outside mission control blair thanks so much marie joining us now is a very very special guest the first native american to serve as the united states secretary of the interior and on the as in a cabinet level post deb holland secretary holland thanks so much for joining the show this morning i'm thrilled to be here thanks for having me when we think of landsat landsat shown us a lot of interesting things how we're impacted by drought hurricanes even man-induced activities like urban development and deforestation how does this kind of data help the average person well i'll tell you what um those of us in the department of the interior and and the and the you know government-wide we're making policies every day to make sure that we can keep our environment safe and clean for generations to come and hard data like this helps us incredibly but also look we have opportunities to see those changes over time the landsat's been in existence for the last 50 years the technology gets better and better each time and so this is such a rich form of data that we can use that will help people's everyday lives they may not know that but there's folks working behind the scenes every single day to make sure that people can have uh have what they need moving into the future well it's interesting because i was gonna segue right into how this impacts policy but you jump there right away so in your experience so far have you worked with lawmakers to sort of chart some policies that would actually be helpful in regards to climate change absolutely and of course we're in the uh thick of the climate crisis right now we see that every day drought wildfires hurricanes hurricane ida that devastated parts of the south and went all the way up to new england we um i mean images like the ones that landsat 9 will bring back to us will help us tremendously to guide us in how we are approaching climate change working to make sure that we can make the best decisions possible so that folks have water into the future that we can grow our food into the future these are all things that will affect the daily lives of every single american and quite frankly these are pictures from around the world not just the united states so it's going to help folks all over the world to make those decisions and um it's it's it's unmistakable uh incredible uh hard data that we can use every day absolutely thank you so much secretary holland for being on the show back to you daryl we are now l minus 20 minutes and counting until launch and we've been monitoring the launch teams with our headsets we're plugged in and mick you just got some good news yeah we did we got to hear from the launch team that everything is go they're back on schedule things are are working well and we are green for our 11 12 launch opportunity this morning so it's exciting that we're getting ready to launch landsat 9. that's great news we've got a little moisture on the camera as you can see there there's a little mist in the air there's some fog and there's a marine layer but none of it is expected to stop this opportunity today nick want to talk about the launch time at 11 12 a.m pacific time that actually moved one minute what was the reason for that yeah darryl we uh we moved to one minute uh to 11 12 this morning do in order to accommodate a cola or what we call a collision on launch assessment uh for the c train the c train is made up of two satellites calypso and cloud set that lsp launched back in 2006 and we want to make sure that when we launch landsat 9 this morning we get in that near polar sun synchronous orbit but we don't want to hit our fellow satellites that are earth observing so to avoid that we made sure that landsat 9 needed where it go we moved the launch by one minute in order to avoid the cloud sat satellite then i have ruben space to get to space and so we are looking good from that aspect as well as we look at a shot here from the pad you can see the the steam that's coming off the rocket those are just vent valves right that are venting off excess liquid oxygen yes daryl actually as uh the team is finished up we're in what we call topping mode and as the liquid oxygen liquid hydrogen boils off that's what you see coming off there and as we get ready to go into t minus four and counting you will see those vent valves close and that will stop and bring us to flight pressures now as you look at that rocket there's actually a special dedication on it you can't see it but we're going to show it to you in a second uh there's a special dedication there and it the reason is of this it's because of this man thomas heater ii heater began his 45-year career in the launch business at general dynamics and relocated here to vandenberg as a flight test engineer in the mid 60s he rose to director of vandenberg launch operations and during that time supported 200 atlas titan and athena launches peter ii passed away several years ago and so ula put this special dedication to him on the side of the atlas v rocket you can see it there in memory of our colleague and friend tom heater ii his family and friends gathered around the rocket as well and took a photo and mick you know you had the privilege of working under heater the second and may i just point out between the u and the a right there on the l is uh thomas heater the second son the third yes daryl mr heater was a remarkable leader humble person and you know what i did i had the privilege of working with him on many atlas missions here at vandenberg space force base before i started with nasa mr heater was the director of launch operations at space launch complex 3 but what i remember the most is he would always keep an eye on things going on at the pad but he always always took care of his people and looked out for things and as you said special note for us in launch services program we get to work with his son who is today's launch director who we will hear from later and he's a remarkable person also great dedication to the heater family indeed and we'll hear him report out as the last in the l minus seven poll we'll get to that in a bit but first i want to talk about lsp and their ability to bring together the rocket and the spacecraft since the dawn of humanity we have looked to the stars and dreamed of bridging the gap between the earth and the cosmos [Music] in the 20th century nasa turned that dream into a reality by launching humanity into a bold era of scientific discovery as pioneers of space travel our best and brightest designed and built everything from the ground up from launch pads to rockets all of which were government owned and operated as nasa's science and robotics evolved we encouraged a competitive launch market to develop ushering in a new way to explore and discover through commercial space flight spacecraft customers from around the world all with the same desire reached out to find an expert at nasa for support thus nasa's launch services program was born [Music] our mission is to centralize nasa's launch services and address state-of-the-art customer needs when placing their spacecraft in orbit around the earth the sun or destinations deeper into the solar system the lsp family is made up of a diverse tapestry of government and contractor engineers analysts operation experts and business advisors all united by a common goal to get your spacecraft off the ground on time on budget and successfully to its final destination wherever that may be we match scientific and robotic spacecraft with the appropriate rocket and certify rocket performance and reliability support full-service missions advisory services and one-of-a-kind contracts the launch services program is the common thread that bridges the spacecraft organization to the rocket designer and the spacecraft to the rocket we provide long-term technical leadership and expertise from pre-mission planning to system verification and validation all the way through launch whatever the vision or requirements our team will be there guiding our customers every step of the way on their journey through space we are the common thread that connects the science world to the physical world by putting the necessary instruments in place the thread that weaves nasa's industry leading knowledge and support into the fabric of the commercial space market we unite customers capabilities and culture to explore space through unparalleled launch services [Music] nasa's launch services program we are earth's bridge to space it is l minus 14 minutes and counting until liftoff we've talked a lot about the history of landsat but we would be remiss if we did not point out the mother of landsat the woman who created and fought for it virginia norwood was an mit graduate and physicist working at hughes aircraft company in the 1960s and she knew nasa wanted a way to capture multi-spectral images from space she set out to solve the problem and through years of research development and testing she created the multi-spectral scanner system that flew on the very first landsat satellite as a testament to her legacy there is an entire group of women on twitter who call themselves the ladies of landsat they draw inspiration from norwood as they highlight the work of underrepresented researchers and we will hear from the co-founder of this group a little later after launch virginia norwood could not be with us today but we do have some of the ladies of landsat here at vandenberg to see the launch up close and we hope they enjoy it joining me now is dr thomas zurbukin associate administrator for nasa's mission directorate thomas uh thanks for being here it's starting to clear up we can actually see the pad now um tell us how does landsat tie into the entire uh science directorate portfolio america what an amazing day i'm just so excited and of course this is the first of 11 launches in earth signs in the next two three years just from nasa alone and in many ways the way i think about landsat it's really the foundation the contextual data in which we look at uh all the earth signs we do the research that we're doing looking at our amazing planet because of the nearly 50-year time the way i think about it is almost like a painting our research is the paint the landsat is the canvas so it really belongs together very deeply absolutely and landsat obviously looks down on earth surveying the entire planet does anything we learn from landsat help us turn outward to explore further into the solar system absolutely you know the the work that we're doing in all of nasa of course expands beyond earth science we have missions that will go to the trojans a planetary mission the james webb space telescope launching later this year and we use the very same technology that we're using for these analysis of the cosmos of other planets looking at our planet so yes we learn from there to here but very much we learn from the earth science instruments to look at how we explore other planets sure i want to also ask you about this huge treasure trove of data available for researchers it's available to the public first we have a quick video to explain that [Music] landsat archives its 9 millionth scene [Applause] each scene is a satellite image from space about 115 miles wide researchers and well just about anyone can download scenes from the landsat archive managed by usgs landsat holds the title for the longest continuous space-based record of earth in existence that's 50 years of scenes like these helping scientists and researchers understand how our planet is changing over time so we just saw a video there about landsat having archived nine million images and counting we're adding 700 every day to that um until the earlier 2000s this data was not free people had to pay per per scene now that's completely free it's available to anyone who wants it why is that so significant oh it's absolutely essential to unleash the power of the data that we have of course our partnership with usgs remains strong they are our if you want translators of really the images to the application spaces in our world whether it's agriculture fisheries and beyond but by making the imagery public what happens is that companies non-for-profit or for-profit companies can take those data and put their own data on top of it and actually add to the value of the landsat data in waste that otherwise would not occur so it's a huge stimulant on entrepreneurial thinking of the type that the u.s is known for and beyond landsat we're looking forward to launch in 10 minutes or so uh but real quickly what else are you looking forward to this year for the science mission directorate wow it's an amazing year frankly there's hardly ever been one like this just uh two three weeks from now around mid october we're going to launch lucy to the trojans they're out there at jupiter distances bodies of the solar system we've never observed the james webb space telescope in two missions one looking at the violent universe in x-rays and then the first coalition experiment of a spacecraft with the nearest object all right dr thomas zurbukin thank you so much for joining us enjoy the launch uh and with that let's send it over to daryl and mick to take us through these final minutes before liftoff guys all right thank you marie and welcome back into the mission director center we've been listening to the launch team and just got some great news from nasa launch manager tim dunn who declared that landsat 9 is now on internal power that means things are looking really good yeah tim duncan uh completed his poll with the team uh notified them the weather looks good the range is good spacecraft is internal power like you said daryl and those are all good indications that we are go for launch at 11 12 this morning so excited to hear about that the next up we will hear from united launch alliance uh launch conductor scott barney he will perform at l minus seven the ula uh teams poll where we will hear the team give their go ready to enter terminal count and as we mentioned earlier launch director tom heater will give that final proceed to launch and of course a dedication going up on the rocket with his name on it his son as you mentioned the launch director will be listening for that poll which is coming at l minus seven minutes if you look across the bottom of the screen you can see we're at weather briefing coming up is pulling and we'll hit that at l minus seven as we count down sixty more seconds until that moment as we look out at the rocket we see that they've had a little bit of clearing that doesn't affect the chance for launch but mick it's nice to see that there's a little more visibility four miles visibility which is exactly the distance between this rocket and our host desk where maria is in the launch viewing area yeah i'm feeling a lot better seeing some of that fog clear off that marie will be able to actually see something from where she's located with all the guests she has up there that's exciting like we said the weather is is really cooperating with us this morning and as this fog here in vandenberg moves out weather still remains go and the united space force has assured us that we have a green all the way through launch and once they go green and once this thing launches it will be the 2000th launch from vandenberg space force base as well as the 300 atlas let's listen in now as they conduct that poll seven minutes status check to proceed with terminal count atlas system repulsion go hydraulics go pneumatics go lo2 go water go centaur systems propulsion go pneumatics go lo2 go lh2 go has gas go electrical systems airborne go ground go facility go rffts go flight control gcq go operation support go com go umbilicals go ecs go redline monitor go quality go off safety manager go ula safety officer go vehicle system engineer go and only chief go range coordinator clearly proceed launch director you have permission to launch alc verified t0 is set for 1812 zola verified 1812 zulu that's utc time and we are go and i gotta tell you it was nice to hear tom heater the third give that go right there at the end absolutely i got goosebumps here daryl uh every time we get to this point in a launch it is great to hear the team give their goes and this is special for me to to dedicate this to mr tom heater the second and hear tom heater give that proceed to launch that is so i can't even explain how i'm feeling right now i'm so excited for landsat 9 this morning uh looking forward to this launch his family and friends also here present to watch this with all of us we are now counting down to the t minus four hold where we're going to get those clocks synced up with a t clock and the l clock this has kind of been a windy road to get to this point though make this launch originally scheduled for september 16th it moved to the 23rd there were some issues with liquid nitrogen getting into the pad because of a coved 19 induced issue with liquid oxygen back in florida so it created a shortage here moved past that also had a little issue with a spacecraft getting it up because of the winds but launch services program stuck with it stayed the course and got us to the launch day today yeah you know i could i'm i'm very proud of the team nasa's launch services program our commercial partner united launch alliance the united states space force they worked hard to get through this it has been a windy road to get here but you know the team's dedicated this is just part of the rocket business and these guys have maintained their processes followed through their procedures and worked diligently to get us here today daryl so i can't say enough about the teams that have continued to get bring us here for landsat's launch this morning as we approach the t minus four minutes what do we expect to hear so we're going to hear them pick up the camera and counting three two one mark so we just heard that the l clock and the t clock will sync up we are now entering terminal count at t minus three we will hear the team secure topping and verify that everything is at flight levels around two minutes and 50 seconds we will hear that the flight termination system will go to internal power making sure that all the safety protocols are on the rocket as we launched this morning and around two minutes we'll hear that the atlas and centaur vehicle go internal on battery power which means is a clear signal that we will be launching on time this morning and then at one minute we will hear the united states space force give us a range go or green thumbs up and we will then proceed into our t 0 mark for landsat 9 this morning as you can see there the rocket against a dreary backdrop with a marine layer and a little bit of fog it's 93 percent humidity here along the central coast of california it's about a little less than 60 degrees in the temperature that's outside none of that is a factor over the past few days we've also seen some smoke from a nearby wildfire at sequoia national forest there you're looking right down the side of the booster the atlas v booster and seeing that condensation coming off that super chilled skin of the rocket yeah i love that shot that rocket cam shot that'll be a great shot as we lift off this morning and as you said seeing that super chilled tank as it uh filled with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen on the centaur tanks this morning uh we are just excited about this and we just heard from the team that the they're going to flight levels on the top on the tanks and so that's a good sign that we are getting ready to close those vent valves and move into what we call step three for flight pressures once that rocket lights that orange fire will certainly change the light and change the mood of many of the folks who are watching this certainly on tv you're going to see all of that we've got all the cameras focused in all the angles on this rocket you can see on the progress bar we are go for launch our next point is liftoff vehicle internal so we just heard the call daryl for vehicle internal that's a good sign we're going to hear the last poll here to verify everything lh2 the carrying center there's where they're securing and shutting off the vent valves and the securing the vehicle 137 fts armed flight termination system is armed we are getting closer and closer to that t-zero mark darrell and there's a big moment at t minus 45 seconds what do we hear there we're going to hear the uh launch conductor scott barney verified la from the last minute that everybody's ready to go and we get a green to go for launch it's been a lot of work to get to this point a lot of preparation let's listen in there we just heard vent valves locked and as you saw there you pointed out earlier that steaming off the vehicle has now stopped the vent valve rock report range status the range is green that is a great sign to hear range is green daryl that we are good to go coming up on that poll from lodge conductor scott barney morty stable at step 3. 25 status check go atlas go centaur go landsat 9. and there it is the word to launch landsat 9. must 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ignition and liftoff liftoff of an atlas 5 rocket and landsat 9 continuing the legacy of an irreplaceable 50-year record on our ever-changing planet the control system response looks good party 180 engine operating parameters continue to look good vehicle has begun the uh pitch over maneuver body rates look good that pitch over maneuver heading it to the south towards southern california and down to mexico now passing 40 seconds into flight engine operating parameters continue to look good pump speeds and injector pressures all within expected ranges there's a shot from our tracker cam above marine layer now 55 seconds into flight vehicles now completing the pitch over maneuver body rate responses continue to look good three minutes remaining in the boost phase of flight home speeds and injector pressures on the rd-180 continue to look good body rates continuing to look good and one minute 20 seconds into flight atlas is now supersonic vehicle passing mach 1. a critical moment for the ride vehicle is now passing max q maximum dynamic pressure rd180 performance continues look good throughout boost phase engine's now throttling down slightly as expected engine response looks good that throttle down reduces the stress on the 19-story tall vehicle one minute 50 seconds into flight vehicle is now 10.7 correction 13 miles in altitude 7.9 miles downrange distance traveling at 1500 miles per hour now just under two minutes remaining in the boost phase of flight at two minutes 18 seconds the atlas v vehicle now is just one half of its liftoff weight and vehicles gone to closed-loop guidance body rates indicating a slight adjustment can be expected for this stage of flight there's a beautiful shot right there looking back towards the planet and see the plume from the rd-180 and the reaction control system on the center is now pressurizing the flight levels this compressor response looks good so the reaction control system on centaur they're prepping it 180 engine operating parameters continue to look good throughout boost phase body rates remain stable coming up in 60 seconds the booster engines will cut off approximately one minute remaining now until booster engine cut off our tracker shot getting great and now three minutes 15 seconds into flights atlas is 48 miles an altitude 70 miles down range distance traveling at 5600 miles per hour great shot as it goes out over the southern pacific on speeds and injector pressures on rd-180 continue to look good throughout boost stage and the atlas 5 is now throttling to maintain a constant 5g acceleration limit engine response looks good speed currently seven thousand seven hundred miles per hour now throttling to maintain a constant four point sixty acceleration limit in preparation for vico this is where the booster engine cuts off and then separates and we have bco booster engine cutoff standing by for stage set and we have good indication of atlas centaur separation we have pre-start on the rl10 standing by for ignition and there you see the separation we have ignition and full thrust on the rl10 chamber pressure looks good body rates look good beautiful shot of the booster falling away as you're looking down good indication of payload-bearing jettison and you should see the payload fairings sometimes they come around the side 12 minutes 11 seconds there you see 10 performance continues to look good in the early part of this first burn now passing four minutes 47 seconds into flight so we're in a good point mick flight is looking good we're going to monitor the situation here but uh what a beautiful launch what a beautiful flight so far five minutes but there's still a lot of work to do yeah absolutely a lot of work to go on but beautiful shot there of the rl10 engine in space uh sending landsat 9 onto its orbit a great launch this morning so excited for this we're getting some of that uh orbital sunrise on the uh engine bell there and that's just a neat look as you look back at our planet all right marie we'll keep track of things in here but for the meantime we'll send it back out to you on the hill all right thanks guys we did get lucky enough for that marine layer to clear so we could see lift off from here at the gravel pit earlier i had the opportunity to speak with nasa administrator bill nelson about today's launch take a listen nasa administrator bill nelson thank you so much for joining us you have described climate change as an all hands on deck global challenge that requires action now tell us how does the landsat program help leaders take action now to address climate change we best get on the business of doing it right now and what landsat does it is the longest continuous global satellite record of the earth's surface and these satellites have documented earth's changing landscape it helps farmers scientists understand and manage land resources and all of that is needed to sustain human life such things as food and water and forest and of course landsat's long-term record of our home planet allows us to track the changes and the impacts of climate change and president biden's fiscal year 2022 budget requests 24.8 billion dollars for nasa that's a six percent increase from last year and also the strongest budget nasa has ever had for science how do you quantify the value of nasa's science missions it is a very strong budget request the value is immense and when you're talking about data like this it's hard data that arms decision makers with the tools they need to make tough decisions about our future it's exploration on other planets helping to answer the age-old questions how did we get there are we alone it's the inspiration of the next generation that is what this science budget is all about and besides landsat in what other ways is nasa making it a priority to understand and respond to climate change well we are doubling our efforts to lead when it comes to climate science earlier this summer we announced a new earth systems observatory it's going to be five great observatories that will look at the land the oceans the ice and the atmosphere and combine a 3d composite of what is happening very precisely to our atmosphere that combined with all of our other existing assets such as the landsats it's going to develop the ability for us to really measure what is happening and also we're continuing to develop resources for sustainable aviation uh that is less pollution in the air from aircraft and it will keep industry in u.s competitive and drive fuel efficiency that helps the environment administrator bill nelson thank you so much for your time thanks a lot have a great day all right there is a live view on your screen now of landsat on its way into orbit turning now to one of the many practical applications of landsat the u.s department of agriculture uses it to track annual yield of every crop grown in the united states disaster managers can see impacts from floods and other natural disasters resource managers can use the data to direct crop rotation and monitor water use take a look america has always been a fertile land grasslands and forests and farms from sea to shining sea the u.s department of agriculture tracks how many acres and the annual yield for every crop produced from the big ones like corn wheat soy to regional crops like cotton rice citrus they track every year using data from landsat satellites and others combined with data from surveys on the ground [Music] landsat satellites see detail at the human scale about the size of a baseball diamond and can image individual farm fields the program started in 1997 with north dakota as an experiment other states became interested and the program grew in 2008 landsat data became free to use and the usda could afford to map 48 states during the growing season the data helps estimate crop yields which helps farmers and traders set prices for the harvest thanks to landsat's detailed view the usda tabulates stats crop by crop county by county and state by state at the end of each year the dataset is released to the public and it is a beautiful site the patchwork of corn in yellow and soybeans in green in the midwest the diversity of crops in california's central valley the clusters of citrus in florida and california and texas we can see changes in farming through the years the easiest to see is crop rotation in the midwest cycling between corn and soybeans in northern north dakota there is a shift from barley and wheat to soybeans and canola and we see an increase in cotton fields shown in red in texas and oklahoma thanks to the free and open access to landsat data the us department of agriculture is providing our farmers with accurate data and helping maintain our nation's food supply all right we want to bring in a special guest now from northrup grumman the company that actually built the landsat 9 satellite frank demurrow you are the vice president of tactical uh space systems for north northrup grumman uh and i understand this is your first launch out here at vandenberg how was it it was really special really special to see that rocket lift off yeah well i tell you uh we got a little lucky it's also my first one so we shared that together uh but the last couple days it's been the marine layer has been so thick it's been very hit or miss our view from uh here to the launch pad four miles away so we lucked out i'm glad glad you got to see it yeah it was a special time special special time so this is the actually landsat 9 is the fourth satellite that northrop grumman has built for nasa tell us about the process you know what goes into building a landsat satellite and integrating it with the instruments yeah well of course the satellite that we build a platform part of it is really there to carry these special instruments to do the work that landsats9 is going to do and so i have a dedicated team of engineers in gilbert arizona where we actually built design and built the satellite working closely with our nasa customer to make sure that the structures and the power and all the data transfer systems are all in place to be able to accommodate the instruments and then once we put that all together and put the instruments on the spacecraft it goes through a rigorous test process so so that when we deliver it here and it gets launched like you saw today it's ready to go there are so many things as you know that have to go right for a rocket launch to happen um and certainly the workers that you described in gilbert arizona are a big part of that you know all of the meticulous work i'm sure they had to do to get to this point can you talk a little bit about that team you know what it's been like working through the covet pandemic and any impact that's had at all well it's it's been a it's a really special team and they're so dedicated to this mission the fact that this is our fourth landsat mission partnered with nasa all these years and this type of mission is really special and the team understands that and as they've worked through the past year and a half they've just continued to work through the covid uh period being dedicated to this mission knowing what's what it really means to nasa what it really needs to the nation to get this data down to the ground so they've they've persevered uh they've worked really hard and i'm really so proud of them mainly that's the main thing i'm most excited for today is what the team gets to see well congratulations to you and the northrop grumman team well thank you very much appreciate it you're welcome thanks for being here all right uh we are now at launch plus 14 minutes 37 seconds and counting we expect landsat 9 to reach orbit uh its intended orbit in just a few minutes and and here's some things to know about that it will circle the earth at an altitude of 438 miles it will travel at 16 760 miles per hour or 4.6 miles per second each orbit around the earth will take 99 minutes so landsat 9 will complete 14 orbits per day landsat 9 will take more than 700 pictures of earth every day all right and as i mentioned we are approaching that orbit milestone so let's get over to daryl and mick to take us through uh the next few minutes guys that's right marie we are just seconds away from main engine cut off centaur has been burning now uh for several minutes it's really close when this happens we're going to be in an orbit it's a little bit higher you just heard we're just about a minute out yeah so what's happening is we have this first burn and we're trying to get a slightly lofted orbit this morning into that near polar sun synchronous orbit darrell so that we can get landsat 9 up there what will happen is main engine cutoff will occur and then we will coast for several minutes uh if they get landsat 9 into the orbit it needs to be and then we will get spacecraft separation at uh l plus one hour and 20 minutes hard to believe we're just a few seconds away from main engine cutoff but hard to believe this spacecraft and this rocket have gone almost completely around the planet uh currently uh coming up through uh eastern africa over turkey we're just seconds away let's listen in and we have miko managing cut off body rates look good vehicles now recovering from the shutdown transients and there you go daryl we heard from united launch alliance commentator patrick moore who's done a fantastic job since liftoff of filling us in on all the activities that have been going on and we just got confirmation of main engine cut off so landsat 9 in the centaur will uh coast for a little bit and then we're about an hour and three minutes from landsat 9 separation yeah it'll cost for a lot of it because as you can see in the bottom of the screen we have removed our progress bar with the milestones and now have a new progress bar which will show you the time to spacecraft separation which you can currently see is set in an hour and three minutes we'll be monitoring everything here but once again we'll send it back out to the hill with murray all right thanks guys joining me now is landsat 9 project scientist jeff masik uh jeff thanks for being here uh how was the launch it is incredibly exciting yeah and successful so you know everybody's happy how much work has gone into getting to this point uh well six years plus the preparatory period um you know plus working through covid so you know it's the team i'm really happy for the team right i mean this is thousand a thousand people probably have been working on this mission from multiple contractors the government usgs nasa um and uh under tough circumstances and so i'm just thrilled that it it went off absolutely i want to ask you more specifically about landsat 9's two main instruments the operational land imager ii and the thermal infrared sensor too a little bit of a mouthful but we have a quick video about those and then i want to ask you about that sure there are two instruments aboard landsat 9 oli 2 is all about light once in orbit oli 2 collects sunlight reflected off earth's surface the light passes through a set of filters to separate out nine specific wavelength bands invisible and infrared frequencies each band provides different pieces of information about what is down on the surface the second instrument aboard landsat 9 called tiers 2 collects thermal infrared wavelengths or temperature signatures emitted by the earth itself so that was a really quick breakdown if you're a lay person like me you have to watch that several times to absorb the information can you help us understand how those two instruments take measurements and work together and then send it back to earth sure um so as the video said we have two instruments um one is uh looks at the shorter wavelengths and so it basically looks at light that's comes from the sun is reflected back off the earth to the ole e2 instrument the other instrument tiers ii looks at the longer wavelengths which are sensitive to surface temperature and uh and basically by combining the data from all the different spectral bands you can fingerprint materials on the earth so you can tell what's vegetation what soil what type of soil um and that's really what the the scientists use the the analysis that they do all right and i also want to ask you specifically about the the different kinds of light that landsat collects we have another quick video to explain that true color images are made by combining red blue and green light combined together these visible bands of light make up all the colors in the rainbow and all of landsat's true color images landsat also captures light that we can't see that type of light can reveal some incredible things when you look at a false color image like the difference between types of plants how healthy those plants are healthy coral reefs and even dead coral reefs fire tracking ocean pollution the possibilities are nearly endless okay so in that clip we heard about visible light versus non-visible light i didn't even know non-visible light was a thing true color versus false color again didn't know false there was a even such a term as false color so why do those things matter when you're interpreting data right so we really only can see three uh channels of light with our eyes at once and so we have 11 channels on landsat that we can put into any of those red green or blue sort of layers to actually inspect so a false color image is simply one where we take one of the infrared wavelengths that we normally can't see with our eyes and we turn it into a red green or blue channel on an image to to look at in fact when people are actually analyzing their landsat data they may look at all 11 channels at once using something like an artificial intelligence algorithm on a computer so actually looking at the image while it's beautiful isn't always necessary for getting the information out all right jeff masic landsat 9 project scientist thank you so much for joining us uh we hope you enjoy the rest of your afternoon and i think you maybe deserve some time off after getting through that launch yeah it was great congratulations to you all right turning our attention now to landsat's imaging of the largest tropical rainforest in the world of course i'm talking about the amazon it's nearly as big as the continental united states but every year deforestation is shrinking the rain forest and landsat satellites have been documenting the changes since 1948 1984 excuse me the amazon is the largest tropical rainforest in the world at over six million square kilometers the amazon basin and the tropical forests that it holds are about the same size as the entire continental united states home to millions of people and tens of thousands of species landsat is nasa's longest running record of our changing planet data have been taken from landsat satellites since 1972 and that allows us to go back in time over several very important decades the landsat archive is perfectly timed to capture many different waves of colonization across the amazon it's very powerful in this sense because it's not just an image it's actually a bunch of information what happens with one set is that it have several bands which have specific information so pixel by pixel but you have at least seven pieces of information that can be combined in different ways to see different things so if you are interested to see vegetation there is one combination that you make that can give you more information about vegetation landsat satellite data are the most important source we have about how much deforestation happens each year across the amazon 40 years ago we see small-scale deforestation creating roads that look like fish bones into the forest but by the middle of the landsat record we see large-scale commodity production taking hold so today's deforestation across the amazon frontier isn't a single family it's tractors and bulldozers clearing large swaths of rainforest to make room for industrial scale cattle ranching and crops so far the amount of area that's been deforested in the brazilian amazon alone is equivalent to the size of the state of california deforestation in the amazon happens with fire today's deforestation looks like the large-scale clearing of soils of rainforest using heavy machinery and then the land is burned and burned again to remove all of the tropical trees and timber if we think about the size of a soccer field we think about deforestation in those same size categories so deforestation in the early part of the landsat record might have been numbered in a single soccer field today's deforestation happens in tens if not hundreds of soccer fields the value of the landsat archive is that we have a long-term memory of the changes that have occurred across the amazon frontier [Music] and the mapioma's record of landcover across the amazon is an excellent example so modbiamos is a network formed by ngos that works with science universities and startups and technology our mission is to map and monitor everything that is related to land cover land use in brazil always with a historical perspective because back in 75 0.5 percent of deforestation less than one percent in 88 was five percent and now we are getting close to 20 percent of deforestation in the amazon you know between 20 and 25 what the science is saying that it's maybe the point of no return and that's very fast right um 40 45 years to lose 20 of the amazon so we could precisely identify how many events of deforestation happen in brazil or what's the size who is responsible what is the piece of land that is there if they had an authorization or not and we find out that over 99 percent of all the deforestation that happened in brazil in 2019 it was illegal this is really kind of a striking information that make us to move and say okay we can't accept we just simply can't accept that we live on a place where the illegality is actually the norm right so this is like the type of thing that we want to kind of use the remote sensing data to kind of shake in the decision-making process of the different agencies in public and in the private sector to take better decisions for what we call the stewardship of the management of our natural resources which are crucial for all reasons in brazil the advantage of landsat first is free that's absolutely crucial for us second is that there's no other sensor not even with lower resolution or high resolution that will have a history consistent over the time for 35 years of image available so if you really want to have a long history of understanding of any process in the earth landsat is where you should go without landsat we would not have the record we have today about deforestation and changing agriculture across a vast and important biome all right it is now l plus 27 minutes 22 seconds and counting let's go now to nasa edge's franklin fitzgerald with the landsat 9 project manager franklin adele jinstrom who is the nasa project manager for landsat 9 dell how you doing today i'm doing fine thank you now landsat has been around for quite a long time uh how long have you been associated with this project well let's see i i started working on landsat 8 back in 2005. so i've been working on landsat satellites for about 16 years and now the landsat 9 project began in 2015. so we've been working on this satellite we're about to launch for a little more than six years now there has been a landsat satellite in orbit continuously since 1972. that's a heck of a long time how do you plan to keep the streak alive with landsat 9 well we're we're we're launching landsat 9 to replace landstat 7 which is run run out of its uh orbit station keeping fuel and so uh that's the urgency to get landsat 9 up there so we can replenish the architecture of two healthy satellites landsat 8 and landsat 9. now the the history of landsat is very interesting and sometimes chaotic as you said the first satellite was launched back in 1972 but nasa and usgs haven't had a stable budget line item through much of that time until 2014 and so now they have the sustainable land imaging program where they can plan for the future and and develop future satellites um so the history in the past of trying to maintain that continuity of of having two healthy satellites on orbit uh has had many ups and twists and turns and ups and downs and and the agencies have been directed down multiple different paths uh landsat 6 was even a completely commercial enterprise other agencies that participated and so uh one of the reasons that that this country has been able to maintain two active landsat satellites on orbit for much of the last several decades is because landsat 5 and landsat 7 have lasted so long landsat 5 operated for almost 30 years landsat 7 has been operating for more than 20 years and our usgs partners have just done a stellar job of managing the on-orbit assets and keeping them going and uh but now we get to launch landsat 9 up there to to work alongside landsat 8 and have two healthy satellites again up there that sounds great that is good news uh now have there been any challenges to getting landsat 9 in orbit well there's always challenges satellites no matter what project you're working on satellites are are hard to build they're always custom uh and custom electronics and software and hardware and to do whatever mission you're trying to do and so there's always technical challenges and certainly in modern satellites there's lots of bits and bytes flying all over and lots of electronics and we've had our challenges with things like that especially some bits and bytes and electronics but i i think clearly the biggest challenge for this project has been trying to bring this mission to launch in the middle of a pandemic developing a satellite is is very interactive lots of meetings and gatherings to work through designs and design trades and and testing and and requirements and work planning for the future working through risks um and suddenly we all found ourselves in march 2020 you know like many people sitting at home in our pajamas wondering how we're going to complete this project and this team has just rallied to be just just a stellar group of people to the able to pull this mission together and launch it in the in the middle of the pandemic the agencies and organizations involved have have done a great job of building up the tools for working online and remotely northrop grumman kept their doors open to keep critical work going on in the satellite while still you know keeping people safe uh and they also worked with us to be able to monitor test data separately or or remotely um our our usgs partners expanded their ability to keep mission operations and ground system development going remotely our mission integration team that brings together the flight and the ground system put together new tools to enable um uh testing all of this together and still there there were lots of challenges with this this has been tough on the team um and there's a stress level you feel that i'm sure as much as anybody that uh there's a stress with with this pandemic and it's been hard on the team but uh and we've lost some schedule because of it and there are other costs and whatnot we're still working through some of that but i think that was by far the biggest challenge because it's just gone on for so long and i'm just so proud of this team bringing this mission to launch even still here in the middle of this pandemic yes well it's a blessing to have you here uh uh it's great to see the launch go off without any problems and again thanks for being on the show with us today all right thank you very much bill jenstrom nasa project manager for landsat 9. back to you marie thanks franklin the images landsat 9 will capture provide astonishing detail about gradual changes that add up over time this landsat will show us finer detail than ever before landsat's entire job is to collect light how intense that light is tells us about what's on the ground you can think of intensity like shades of a different color landsat 9 the newest satellite to join the landsat fleet sees 16 384 shades that's four times the depth of color of the previous landsat meaning we'll be able to see more detail in darker spots like coastal waters and dense forests [Music] joining me now to talk about that is dr pete doucet of the u.s geological survey as we mentioned the usgs is a partner with nasa in the landsat program uh now pete you just heard that video with me about 16 384 different shades my kids like to color never seen a crayon box quite that big without many shades obviously this is a much more advanced technology why is that level of detail that number of shades significant well quite simply it allows us to see what what the satellite is looking at at greater granularities of of shade obviously the human vision system cannot detect that between that number of shades but mathematical algorithms certainly can and that's what we use our math algorithms to distinguish between subtle uh changes among landforms and especially in vegetation and various kinds of soil and so it has remarkable discrimination power to to tell those subtle changes in those kinds of features i also want to ask you about how the landsat satellites work together obviously they overlap a little bit and we have another quick video to explain that it will take landsat 9 and its sister satellite landsat 8 8 days to image all of earth's land and coastal areas that means we get a complete picture of earth every eight days in this case two satellites are better than one landsat's eight and nine can work together to provide near real-time data about what's happening on the surface of our planet so uh landsat's eight and now soon landsat 9 will be doing the job surveying the planet 24 7. how long will these two be in orbit together and then are there any plans yet for landsat 10 so great question so landsat 8 will continue in orbit until roughly the late uh 2020s which at that point uh landsat next which is the follow-on mission to landsat 9 right is expected to replace it in orbit and uh so landsat 9 will of course continue into the 2030s is the expectation and so together as you saw in the video these do provide a combined eight day revisit which is which is a a minimal threshold to meet to monitor what we refer to as sub-seasonal to seasonal changes going on and i understand this was also your first launch at vandenberg so what it was like what was it like to see or should i see feel the launch it was it was a great opportunity for me to witness my first launch and i really want to commend uh all the folks uh at usgs and nasa for their dedication and passion over six to seven years now unremitting effort to make this day a reality so it's it's really a remarkable uh accomplishment and uh it speaks well to the sustainable land imaging agreement that we do have with nasa which which is a long-term commitment right to continue doing these kinds of earth observations uh well into the future and i guess this is a great opportunity to kind of renew those those uh marriage vows in a matter of speaking between nasa and usgs and we even had you know a little bit of fireworks to go along with it absolutely well so glad you could be here to enjoy the launch congratulations to you on the usgs team dr pete ducette thanks again for being here thank you very much all right we learned earlier about how landsat documents deforestation in the tropical rainforest now to the coldest places on earth time lapse videos of glaciers and ice sheets as seen from space are giving scientists new insights into how our planet's frozen regions are also changing from an observational standpoint we're at a sweet spot where we can see many different aspects of the changing ice cover um and so the problems are then moving toward understanding what we see changing it is pretty clear that we're going to understand what the ice is doing i think that observational glaciology in terms of remote sensing is is a very data-rich field now compared to 1972 when you had a few images so we are beginning to get a historical record of the speeds of glaciers and so we can watch how rapidly that surface is lowering as things speed up or where it's thickening and you know where where the surface is actually coming up where ice is actually thickening on land with this record we can go in and look at the speeds of ice flow over decades and how it's been changing [Music] the reaction i get from from other people that study glaciers is that i watch these videos too fast i like to see the fluid nature of the ice it lets you see the ice on the land as sort of this very active participant in what's going on [Music] one of the places that i like to look at in this particular video of hubbard is if you look just to the upper left of the five kilometer scale bar you can watch the edge of the glacier just spread across the river bed that's coming out of the glacier that's adjacent to it and it just moves it moves trees it moves all sorts of material every single year just advancing so this video that shows the walsh glacier on the top and the logan glacier on the bottom these are these are huge glaciers they're the order of four kilometers wide or so what we see as we loop through it is that the flow in both of these sits there for years and then it will undergo a pulse of faster motion and then sit there again [Music] what strikes me about this image of the mousephena is that you can really see its nature which is that it's a large puddle of ice you've got huge glaciers that are flowing down out of a really high mountain range and these big glaciers reach the coastal plain and the ice just spreads out in this big puddle like you've taken a bottle of syrup and just dumped it in the middle of a plate the malaspina is sort of that big pile of syrup the the other thing that you see is that the ice coming in will head either to the left or the right of center for a while and it will string out those meringues so that they get bent into these loop shapes and you know it was until i saw this video that i felt like i had a good understanding of just what was producing these amazing loops in the marines [Music] in compiling this landsat record from landsat 1 in 1972 up through today i've gone through year by year and i've tried to pick out the latest melt season image i can so the white snow of winter is gone and you can see the detail and the flow stripes and the crevasses in the ice and build annual mosaics that give us an image of all of the ice in alaska and the yukon and when those are all lined up all 48 of them are lined up and played as a movie we can see the behavior of the ice over nearly half a century having such a long record allows us to discern long-term trends and separate them from the kind of behavior you might get with a couple worm or a couple cold years [Music] to have a persistent observational capability that's been in place ever since the first landsat was launched it really gives us a much better view of this really rapidly changing part of our planet [Music] the first landsat satellite launched in july 1972 it would be the start of the longest data record of earth's landscapes from space from 438 miles above earth's surface the newest landsat satellite will collect data so detailed you can detect both natural and human-caused changes to the landscape but what really makes landsat unique is the half century of data an unbroken chain of observations over five decades let's take a look at how we got here 1966 the u.s geological survey proposes a satellite to study earth's land masses but what would that look like over the next few years usgs and nasa researched their options 1970 nasa gets the green light to build an earth resources technology satellite an experiment to study and monitor our planet's land surface from space launched in 72 this was the first digital data of earth repeated at regular intervals with geometric fidelity to allow comparison between observations [Music] this changed how we drew maps tabulated agricultural production and assessed damage after disasters in 1975 nasa launched a second satellite similar to the first now they were collecting twice as much data with landsat 3 replacing the aging original in 78 focus shifted to the advanced technology planned for the 80s the thematic mapper instrument launched on landsat 4 in 1982 and on its twin landsat 5 in 84 was a major step forward collecting seven different wavelengths at better ground resolution and with higher precision this was the beating heart of the satellite and became the workhorse for a generation of scientists for the first time landsat data had three visible bands red green and blue allowing natural color composite images [Music] with the addition of shortwave infrared wavelengths the data could better highlight flooded areas mineral deposits and burn scars from wildfires the thermal bands were also upgraded allowing individual farm fields to be tracked the sixth landsat was intended to be another big step forward but it never reached orbit after launch in 1993. plans immediately began for landsat 7 which would carry an even more improved sensor at the time the enhanced thematic mapper plus was the most stable earth observation instrument ever sent into orbit and the calibration could be updated while in space for the first time we had an instrument robust enough to collect lots of data and we had a plan to thoroughly record the entire globe landsat 7 was put to work mapping coral reefs and even produced the first high-resolution natural color map of remote antarctica [Music] improvements to the thermal bands on landsat 7 allowed states and counties to gauge how much water was used by crops this helps them manage water resources efficiently an important milestone occurred in 2008 when the usgs made the data available to download for free users were able to get the data they needed and not just what they could afford it really unlocked a ton of innovation and created about two billion dollars a year in economic benefits the modern era of landsat observations began with the launch of landsat 8 in 2013. having a push broom style sensor on landsat 8 was a big improvement over the older scanning sensor landsat 8 ground system that usgs runs is capable of receiving a lot more data than before we're downloading over 725 scenes each day that just wasn't remotely possible until landsat 8. the two european sentinel 2 satellites were designed to mesh with landsat so that users can treat data from all the satellites as if it came from one single source now we get observations every two or three days instead of every two weeks is the launch of landsat 9 the next step forward it will collect the best data ever recorded by a landsat satellite while still integrating seamlessly with the extensive archive since the early 1970s landsat satellites have allowed us to better manage our resources landsat data has enabled countless innovations and will let us track the effects of climate change into the future over the past 50 years landsat satellites eventually run out of power and need to be replaced by another newer landsat satellite but nasa is currently working on a new technology to refuel dead satellites in order to extend their lifetime let's go back to daryl and mick with more on this exciting new mission daryl yeah that's right marie the target satellite is called landsat 7 and it has enough fuel to let it last the rest of the year beyond that it's going to run out and its orbit will begin to decay and when that happens mick it's impossible for it to continue the mission yeah exactly right satellites are designed for a limited life a mission life and landsat 7 is you coming to the end of its life as far as orbit keeping fuel so that is uh going to be an important thing for us to look at in the future how we can maybe help these things well and that's why nasa is exploring some new technology called osam one it's a pretty cool spacecraft it stands for on-orbit servicing assembly and manufacturing mission it's being built it is designed by engineers at goddard space flight center and it's pretty cool because it'll be the first time that we will see a robotic refueling in space landsat 7 was launched in 1999 from vandenberg space force base and since going into orbit the satellite far exceeded its five-year mission lifespan but now it's running low on fuel instead of becoming yet another piece of space junk landsat 7 has a new mission as the host satellite for an on-orbit refueling spacecraft called osam one which stands for on-orbit servicing assembly and manufacturing one here's how it'll work landsat 7 will lower its orbit while waiting for osam 1 to launch once in space osam 1 will autonomously rendezvous with landsat 7 and when osam 1 gets close enough the robotic arm will attach the gripper tool from off of its payload deck with a shoulder elbow and a wrist the robotic arm has a range of motion similar to a human arm making it ideal for this complex and dexterous mission osam one then catches landsat 7 by the marmon ring which is how it attached to the rocket when it launched once ground operators nestled the satellite onto osam one's three birthing posts the autonomous pit stop in space begins a cutting wheel removes the thermal blanket off the original fuel valve panel which was never intended for a refueling ground operators will then use osam's advanced tool drive system to prepare the valves the first will cut the lock wire that secures the valves then a removal tool will spin the cap off and stow it safely on the servicer now it's time to fill her up the hypergal refueling tool is connected by a hose to an onboard fuel tank so when the nozzle is guided over the original fuel valve more than 100 kilograms of hydrazine similar to jet fuel will be pumped into landsat 7. the on-orbit refueling is expected to give landsat 7 enough fuel to safely deorbit to make way for future science missions and that extra fuel will allow landsat 7 to continue on and re-enter earth's atmosphere which is important keeping space junk clear out that'll send it back down into earth's atmosphere where it will burn up and then that mic makes way for another spacecraft to then take its place in that orbit absolutely uh darrell and that'll be able to keep things going in the future that i just think that's some cool technology that nasa is working on that we'll be able to do something in the future with that not only refuel a spacecraft but maybe even do some manufacturing in spacecraft that would be really cool technology that we could use for future missions it certainly would and of course launch services program whom you work for is going to be finding a rocket for this spacecraft what can you tell us about that yeah so osm one is on our current flight planning board uh manifest and we're looking at around january 2025 and we are working through all the requirements right now and as you said we will broker up and and match osam one with the right rocket that is needed so we can get it on its way to help out landsat 7. and you can see how important this is to the future development of uh and and exploration of the moon and mars you got to have robots in order to build stuff yeah absolutely as we look forward to send uh humans back to the moon and then mars right robotic demonstration missions like this are crucial so that we can build things in space repair things in space do other type of things in space so very excited to see this kind of technology being developed across the country and then of course launch services program launching and it's on its way that's right and you guys are on top of it i want to talk a little bit about the mission we are currently at l plus uh 52 minutes here's a look at the graphical animation of what centaur is doing right now with landsat at the front you're looking it's pointing down you see the nozzle up you see landsat 9 at the other end of course it's an animation but it's real-time data it's taking data from the telemetry to show its representation in space and currently there's a reason why it's positioned like that tell us yeah so that we can keep the fuel on board as we get ready uh towards the front of the centaur as we get ready to prep for landsat 7 9 sorry landsat 9's separation and then moving on to our next part of our mission which would be main engine start 2 for our cubesat deployments later on in the mission timeline so so far we've heard from patrick moore as they continue to look at this data that everything looks great and the centaur and landsat 7 are on their proper trajectory that's right and so for now though we've got to focus on landsat 9 separation from centaur and as you can see at the bottom of your screen we're about 27 minutes away from that and continuing to count down in that direction landsat 9 is just one part of the larger earth science mission here at nasa and the woman leading it is nasa's karen saint-germain our own nasa edges mr fitzgerald franklin fitzgerald is there with her live take it away yes uh thanks daryl um i'm joined by karen st jermaine who was the director of nasa's earth science division as you've said karen thanks for joining us this afternoon it's great to be here with you franklin now i understand you on console during the launch how are things from your point of view uh it is always an enormous thrill to be on console for a launch and uh and today was no different it was a beautiful smooth launch but in addition to the thrill when i'm sitting on console i am representing the hundreds of engineers and scientists who not only got us to where we are today for launch but they these are the folks who will activate the instrument and then uh and then take the data that the instrument collects and turn it into real actionable information so it's uh it's not only a thrill but it's it's humbling it's an honor to be representing all of those folks on console today now speaking of data let's talk about landsat's longevity record um how does how do we use landsat to understand the human impact on the environment over a long period of time yeah so landsat data is unique in the in the world this is this is the longest data set looking at land and when we look at that at a time series of that data we can see changes in agriculture patterns in forests in urban environments we can even see changes in the coastlines all of the and many of these are impacted by climate change so that record helps us understand not only that change is happening but how fast and whether it's accelerating and what it means for humans um disaster mitigation is a huge interest a topic of interest with wildfires ravaging california year after year in 2020 being on record for the most named storms coming through how does the data from landsat help our government to respond to these disasters landsat data is critical in every phase of a disaster in the in prior to an event landsat data can help us understand the risks so for example if if we have a forested area where the forest is no longer healthy that can indicate that that that vegetation is fuel for a fire and is ripe for a wildfire that can help the that can help planters and responders uh prepare and then while a fire is happening we can see it from space with landsat and our other systems and then after a fire we can see the burn scars which are important because that can be the location of a landslide when precipitation does come later so it's in all phases of a disaster that landsat can help us prepare mitigate and respond and recover that sounds great karen thanks for being with us this afternoon thank you it's great to be with you all right marie back to you all right thank you franklin if you're just joining us we had a spectacular launch this morning in california the marine layer cleared just enough for us to see a lift off four miles behind us and nasa's landsat 9 earth observation satellite uh lifted off here at vandenberg space force base atop an atlas v rocket that was at 11 12 a.m pacific time and it uh reached orbit uh just minutes ago and in about uh 27 minutes or so we expect to hear confirmation of spacecraft separation as the satellite orbits 438 miles above the earth's surface at nearly 17 000 miles per hour that's a view from a little bit earlier today of liftoff the satellite will capture 700 images per day building on the last half century of earth imaging data that has revolutionized humanity's ability to manage resources and respond to climate change landsat data is also being used to help resource managers find algae blooms in america's lakes here's a video to explain it's really an amazing little critter and it's been around for over three billion years in 2016 utah lake exploded and cyanobacteria blooms the problem is that many cyanobacteria produce toxins you may have heard it called blue-green algae but it's really a kind of bacteria taking in sunlight to drive photosynthesis and giving off oxygen it actually requires quite a bit of lab testing to know whether or not it's a harmful algal bloom and what we're really worried about is people and pets ingesting that cyanobacteria dr k fickas is a harmful algal bloom scientist at utah state university she helps the utah department of environmental quality track conditions in lakes and reservoirs so utah is the second dry state the nation most of our major lakes are actually man-made reservoirs they're heavily used for recreation they're heavily used for agriculture and they're really important to the state as a resource in 2017 harmful algal blooms returned to utah lake this time officials used satellite data to identify troubled locations but how can instruments up in space tell us about microscopic organisms in a lake down on earth by measuring their blue green color landsat collects light in visible and infrared wavelengths cyanobacteria reflect more green light than plain water does allowing landsat to identify algal blooms from satellite what we see is uh basically uh that primary pigment which is chlorophyll a but the color by itself could be misleading a nice picture is not necessarily providing a set of quantitative data algal blooms can look beautiful from space but the numbers behind the images are the important part each measurements is highly accurate and is very it's very much corresponding to the number of photons that are leaving the body of water which could be related to the biomass and the amount of phytoplankton dr nema polyvon is working with nasa in the u.s geological survey to make sure landsat users have consistent accurate and ready to use data about lakes and rivers water is difficult to study from space because only a fraction of the sunlight is reflected back to the satellite but engineering improvements on landsat 8 have leveled up its ability to measure the small signals from water bodies after landsat collects the data it gets beamed down to the usgs eros center where it is archived the raw numbers pass through checkpoints to align the geography correct for sun strength and then compensate for the effects of the atmosphere so you essentially removing those atmospheric scattering and absorption let's break down what nema means here to measure the amount of cyanobacteria you need to know how much light reflected off the surface but some of that light gets scattered by molecules in the atmosphere on the way to the satellite lessening the signal received and sometimes light that never made it to the surface gets scattered into the satellite adding a false signal like removing the haze from a photograph atmospheric corrections leave you with a quantitative measurement of exactly how much light left the water known as aquatic reflectance you want to look at the actual physical measurements to derive physically meaningful products from satellite data and that's the goal to transform the raw materials into finished products so that end users don't have to build it themselves by providing chronic reflectance products you're reducing majorly reducing the burden on satellite users although it is still provisional nema's aquatic reflectance data product is available for download from the usgs scientists like kate fickas convert the data product to maps showing the amount of chlorophyll a helping local officials pinpoint where to test for toxins and warn residents i use landsat and other remote sensing technology to help local health departments understand where there's a bloom the magnitude of the bloom and the size of the bloom the spatial detail is another benefit of using landsat data each pixel is only a 30 meter square the size of a baseball diamond yet it collects data across a broad area in other words there's a lot of data at a fairly high resolution with landsat we can get into some of the marinas that are popular fishing and swimming spots in order to inform local health departments about making public health decisions for the 2017 outbreak that's exactly what happened satellite data gave an early warning to local officials in utah the extra week of warning saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in health care costs [Music] monitoring algal blooms from aquatic reflectance data is just one example of benefits from landsat's data products wildfires snow cover vegetation health temperature and more are available for every spot on earth landsat's highly calibrated data products free to download and use are making detailed earth observation data more accessible to users and bringing a greater benefit to society one of the experts we just heard from in that video is dr kate fickas and we are lucky enough to have her with us today i've been so looking forward to this kate thank you so much for joining us thank you thank you marie for having me um besides being an expert on algal blooms in our country's lakes um you also are the co-founder of the ladies of landsat we talked about that earlier in the show paying homage to virginia norwood but tell us um what exactly are the ladies of landsat yeah the ladies of landsat are a group that i started in 2018 and really the gold ladies of landsat is to increase diversity inclusion and equity for women and other underrepresented scientists in the field of remote sensing earth observation so we do this through a bottom-up approach calling for amplification under in representation of those women and minority scientists and then a top-down approach so asking leaders who have the power to make some change in the status quo or the dynamics and leadership in the field of remote sensing to help us out get more women involved in remote sensing in those higher up positions why did you feel it was so important to start this group and to make it an official group on twitter yeah i've been a remote sensing ecologist for about 10 years now and i would travel the world go to international conferences i didn't see many other women i kept asking the question where are all the women in these remote sensing and earth observation sciences so i started the twitter group and then i found my dear friend colleague maureen crowley and we saw the same thing and we needed a community to help support women underrepresented scientists find a place in this community it's generally dominated by men and that can feel lonely scary it can lead to a lot of women dropping out of science and especially remote sensing we didn't want that we wanted a place to be inclusive and a community to support each other well as a mother of two daughters i'm really excited about the work your group does and the example that you set for my kids so thank you i know you're also going to get to meet with virginia norwood a little bit later we she wasn't able to join us here on the show but i want to ask you what do you want to say to her i have so much to say to virginia but i think two things really stand out the first is thank you you know virginia was able to walk so that ladies of landsat can really run nowadays although she was running back in her time as well but she provides an anchor to prove that ladies of landsat have been part of this landsat program from the very beginning it's just maybe taken about 50 years to really find our voice and show that we're here to stay and we have a lot of power i think the second one is congratulations still 50 years later after she invented the mss without the support system or a community to back her up of ladies of landsat back then she was a trailblazer and that's just phenomenal i'm so impressed me too yeah when i read about her i was like wow that she is literally a hero what do you want to say to um women not just women but underrepresented groups i mean that's your your target audience uh who are who are looking for community and how can they find you they can find ladies atlanta on twitter and i always say if you're a lady of lands you're you're in if you want to be a lady of landsat so find us on twitter follow like us and you're in if you need support if you need help we'll find somebody to help you we're always there for you we want to be collaborative community and choose community over competition always all right dr kate fickas thank you so much for joining us we have covered a lot today but there's more landsat is even helping rescue an endangered species of bird in the western united states we took freely available landsat imagery and we developed this range-wide model that covers a vast spatial extent and a really wide temporal window to develop these fine scale maps of habitat suitability for endangered species in an environment that's changing all the time [Music] so i'm a research biologist project manager for the university of idaho and i work on this endangered ridgeways rail in the southwestern united states it's a species that needs attention it is an indicator species of marsh condition throughout the whole colorado river system i know they're they're marshburg they're they're like the size of a chicken but they're high up the food chain in these marshes and so if rails are doing well it's indicative of a healthy system so if we can develop products that help us manage marshes for the rails it's also going to help protect habitats for other species and we are really focusing on okay how do we take effective tools and apply them in space and time to maximize their benefit to the species so we paired this spatially extensive on-the-ground sampling data with really extensive satellite imagery to develop range-wide habitat suitability models that can inform management actions throughout the range of this species we needed a product that was accessible available covered our area of interest and our time frame of interest in landsat really fit that perfectly for us [Music] and we built this tool that is accessible to managers and they can view it and it's updated annually so they'll have up-to-date predictions of habitat suitability throughout the entire range of the species so they can really focus in on the areas that need management that don't need management that perhaps need on the ground confirmation it should be a powerful tool to more effectively and efficiently allocate limited resources to ideally one day get the species fully recovered [Music] we want to go over again to nasa edge's blair allen he is standing by with a special guest from the u.s space force to tell us about a secondary payload on this mission blair joining us now is major julius williams of the united states space force major williams can you tell me a little bit about what your role is for the space force yes first blair nasa edge thanks for having me so myself i'm the chief of the mission manifest office is part of the launch enterprise and space systems command down in los angeles air force base we essentially survey all launch opportunities whether it's dod civil or commercial to look for the extra performance that's on the launch vehicle to get other small satellites or larger satellites to space i'm glad you mentioned small satellites because that's actually part of why we're here today landsat the main mission but now also this lesser-known mission launching micro satellites or cubesats can you tell us about it yeah so the l9 efs that's the landsat 9 espa flight system was essentially a joint partnership between the former u.s air force and the nasa goddard but now the space force since 2019 so the eso flight system team part of nasa goddard space flight center the u.s space force and the parsons corporation was essentially a joint effort to take an esper grande ring and essentially our espering sorry and then actually build out a system that could fly up to 18 cubesats and we were flying four successfully that's awesome now you talked about a very complicated process but it's a very important one how do you actually launch these cubesats from the rocket yeah so there's a various ways to do it uh depending on the rocket system that's flying at that particular time we've had successful missions where we've flown it on the aft end of the af bokeh carrier on this particular one as i mentioned before in a asper ring we're actually taking dispensers like this one right here this is a nanosat launch adapter system and at the point of time of the launch this door would actually be closed of course but when it gets time for the extra deployment and electrical sequence and a lot of other different variables that will happen so that way it actually opens up and then the the satellite that point in time will dispense and deploy at this uh desired time you know it's very exciting to look at this cubesat technology so i'm wondering can you tell me how does this kind of innovation help the space force in the future a lot because it was a space force for science and technology r d prototype missions and a lot of our critical operational capabilities that we need to get on orbit a lot of satellites are are going down from the the larger well-known systems down to small sats or cubesats or espa class size satellite vehicles so being able to use the multi-manifesting capability also known across communities rideshare gives us the ability at a cheaper cost benefit to the taxpayers dollars and everyone involved to essentially mount up dispensers like this load them up with cubesats ranges from various sizes up to especially and then get it on orbit so that technology is going to be critical as we continue to build out some of our national security space launch missions and it kind of helps you develop it kind of a la carte right because you can do it in a very small footprint exactly a very small footprint and if it's the same form fit or function we actually have the capability to switch out those satellites if we need a critical capability that needs to get on orbit to meet whatever the requirement is at that point in time then we can actually down to l minus four depending on the mission at that point in time and the variables at play we can actually swap out those satellites especially with it being a cubesat size i'll tell you what we're very excited to have you on the show today and which wish the best of luck to you the space force and the cubesat program and the cubesat launch yes and we're looking forward to it so um about two hours or close to an hour after the fact two hours and fourteen minutes we'll deploy these sequences out there and look forward to seeing the capability that it's going to bring out to the rest of the world go cube sets go space force thanks so much major julius williams of the us space force back to you guys all right thank you very much blair and back inside the mission director center we are tracking landsat 9 and centaur which have been coasting for this entire time for an hour and 13 minutes and as you can see in your progress bar we're just a few minutes away from the actual separation yeah very excited about this getting ready to separate landsat 9 and continuing the landsat program uh excellent launch today and i'm just waiting for that moment when we hear the confirmation of spacecraft separation it certainly was beautiful from our vantage point we've got a lot of cameras here that were watching it and it was an enjoyable launch to see but make it's just the first of many launches as we going through the end of this year let's take a look at a preview since 1998 nasa's launch services program or lsp has served as earth's bridge to space based at nasa's kennedy space center in florida the program matches scientific and robotic spacecraft with launch vehicles for some of america's most inspiring space missions our mission to successfully place spacecraft in orbit around the earth the sun and destinations deeper into the solar system we centralize nasa's launch services while addressing state-of-the-art customer needs but lsp does more than pair spacecraft with the appropriate rocket the diverse group of government and contractor engineers analysts and advisors certify rocket performance and reliability the team provides long-term technical expertise and support to spacecraft customers from around the world the team manages launches from multiple sites depending on customer and mission needs cape canaveral space for station in florida vandenberg space force base in california reagan test site at kwajalein atoll in the republic of the marshall islands and the pacific spaceport complex in kodiak alaska building off of past success lsp forges ahead to support nasa's future the program has four upcoming missions in 2021 leading off lsp slate is landsat 9 launching from vandenberg a partnership between nasa and the u.s geological survey the mission will monitor and manage land resources to sustain human life next up launching from cape canaveral space force station lucy will be the first mission to study jupiter's trojan asteroids which may be remnants of the primordial material that formed the outer planets of our solar system it's then back to the west coast for double asteroid redirection test or dart nasa's first planetary defense mission that will be followed by imaging x-ray polarimetry explorer or xp launching from kennedy bixby will expand our understanding of x-ray production in objects such as neutron stars and black holes years of testing determination and dedication working as one nasa's launch services program is earth's bridge to space well there you saw a preview of some of the exciting moments that are coming up for lsp and let's talk about the next one up it's lucy yeah lucy launching on the east coast of florida we're excited about lucy just as much as we are landsat 9 today but lucy planetary mission going to study the trojan asteroids out by jupiter that is so exciting some cool science that's going to be going on there you and i just actually spent a few minutes with dr z hearing a little bit about that and his excitement too uh we are so excited to get back to florida and then turn right around come back here to vandenberg to launch the dart mission which i think is a an awesome mission also from an aspect that we are doing a technology demonstration for defense that we're going to impact a satellite into an asteroid to see if we can change the course of an asteroid that one's impressive that we are just doing some cool science it's not just lsp that's excited about these launches but nasa in general as an agency and we're just hoping everybody out there is excited about these upcoming missions as we are and we have a link for you if you want to find uh out more about the lucy mission which is the one right around the corner on october 16th you can see it there on the bottom of your screen just go to the web address nasa.gov forward slash lucy again we are targeting october 16th for that launch time now until separation we're dealing with a little bit over three minutes until that moment happens and so let's talk a little bit about that uh mick how exactly does centaur separate from landsat 9 that's actually a cool little thing that happens is when it's time to separate uh centaur will send a signal to a uh a device that's up there as part of the barman clamp that will release the separation bolts and this marmon clamp that is tied around as you saw earlier in the upstand video tied around on the bottom of landsat 9 it will release that clamp and landsat 9 will then be pushed away using some separation springs very little force that is needed to get landsat 9 going on its way for separation so very simple design but took a long time to do our mechanical engineers have been following this as they mated landsat 9 to this uh to the the marmon clamp and uh it made sure everything was right from attention and perspective and you know we're just looking forward for that moment and we're watching now an animation that is tied to real-time data so we'll see that moment you know it's interesting you talk about springs putting it in the final moment it takes rocket engines to get it up there right it takes rocket engines to get it close into orbit but it does its final move with springs yeah absolutely you know we need all that thrust and power to leave mother earth and get out of her gravitational pull but once we're in space in orbit it takes very little uh work to make things happen as we have watched centaur and landsat 9 orbit in this coast phase we've seen the uh reaction control system just maintain centaur in its space so we're doing we're doing good and that that's uh just how rocket science works just about 70 seconds away now as we're counting down until landsat 9 separation from centaur once this happens though mick there's still a more mission uh more mission to go there's some cubesats on board yeah absolutely landsat 9 is our primary mission today and once we once we separate landsat 9 centaur will begin its maneuvers in chilling down again the rl10 engine and getting ready to restart or what we call main engine start 2 for a few second burn there and then they will do a miko main engine cut off again and then we will do a third burn to get into the trajectory and orbit that we need for to deploy the two uh cubesats that are on board and daryl you had mentioned earlier in the show today is a first for us also on atlas v with a four burn we will do that fourth burn to dispose centaur and not leave it in space as space jump a point of history for the atlas system and centaur we're listening now to see and standing by for spacecraft separation shortly let's listen in we are expecting spacecraft separation at any moment and we have successful separation of the landsat 9 observatory and there you go so excited for that i'm so happy to hear that that is uh just uh exciting to see landsat 9 on its way and continue that 50 years of data and there she goes an impressive site it is an animation but here at the mission uh director center there was some applause behind us with the people gathered here it's a nice moment for them it's a nice moment for you yeah absolutely we applaud but it wasn't a huge celebration yet i mean we're very happy landsat 9's on its way but as we were just talking about the mission's not over yet we still have cube sets to deploy and uh we want to follow this through for mission success for all of the payloads on board today but that is a huge milestone to get landsat 9 on our way and it's also interesting that centaur has to be careful to as it goes on to its orbit to put out those cubesats it's got to be careful to avoid landsat 9 right yeah absolutely we will the maneuvers that will happen is we will wait for landsat 9 to get a uh way and centaur will then coast for a 30 about 30 minutes uh allowing landsat to get in where it needs to be and out of the way and then we will do mess two which as i said main engine start to allow to get everything going for the cubesat separation well that wraps it up for us uh mick we had launch here a successful on on-time launch at 11 12 a.m pacific time 2 12 p.m eastern time from the central coast of california an atlas v rocket putting landsat 9 into orbit in a successful separation an hour and 20 minutes later that's all for us we'll send it back to marie out on the hill all right thanks guys uh joining us now to talk about achieving uh at least mission success so far we're not done as mick said uh but joining us now is nasa's senior launch manager omar baez omar thanks so much for coming out here uh we were just watching the screen together when we heard a confirmation of spacecraft separation so what's that feeling like are you breathing a sigh of relief wonderful it's a it's a great uh great thing to hear um that phone that's sitting on the desk here has the control room patched into it and i can hear them congratulating each other so things are are doing really well for us and uh it looks good for landsat how did things i'm sorry go ahead we uh things evolved uh really easily today uh worked some minor issues with instrumentation um and then we had a slow acting um liquid oxygen valve but that's about it the smooth uh boring countdown and uh got it off right on time so uh we're elated [Music] waiting for the spacecraft to acquire signal which should be happening just about now and then in another six and a half seven minutes they should have the solar arrays deployed and and be well on their way to uh getting a good spacecraft you mentioned a boring countdown that's that's good news that means you're not really working anything significant but that really speaks to the work of the people of the launch services program can you talk a little bit about those folks and just all the work that the team has put into getting to successful uh launch spacecraft and and now to spacecraft separation so so yeah that the team has worked uh phenomenally on this mission and it's been a long haul we had some struggles starting up this month this mission was supposed to go earlier in the month and we had some issues getting liquid nitrogen levels up to where they should be and some technical issues that we found after the wet dress rehearsal occurred and so you know this pad has not been used for the last three and a half years since we did the insight mars mission from here so there was some bugs to work out of the mechanical stuff that's been sitting out here in this beautiful salt environment that takes some exercise and no matter how much maintenance you do on it until you fully exercise the vehicle um with the cryogens on board you don't find everything and and the kind of stuff we found was stuff with the instrumentation and so forth that needed to be uh recalibrated and reset so uh the teams work phenomenally i can't be more proud of them it's the start of a lot of missions for us in a row coming up so it's nice to be able to get used to that pace again coming out of the covet environment here and and actually working and being with people versus looking at them on a tv screen so the team has done phenomenally but i need them to keep on doing a phenomenal job for quite a few other missions back on the other uh coast for lucy next month and then coming back out here to vandenberg for darts you guys have a lot on your schedule that's correct we're doing lucy um uh october 16th so as soon as we get back we do a wet dress rehearsal for them uh the dart mission the spacecraft just got here today in fact they were held at the gate because we were launching landsat 9 and so that spacecraft was uh delayed for a couple hours until we launched but it's now on its way to its processing facility here and uh we'll attempt to launch that on november 23rd and then we have the xp mission back at the cape um which will attempt to launch uh december 9th uh of this year and uh then we'll start the new year with goes-t on february 16th so we have quite a few missions coming up all right nasa senior launch manager omar baez thank you so much for joining us uh congratulations on all the milestones so far i know you still have to get through uh cubesat deployment and a few other things so we'll be keeping an eye on that uh good luck to you on the rest of the milestones okay thank you marian thanks for the public affairs team for making us all happen and being able to speak to our citizens about the great stuff we're doing here thank you thank you all right dude those of you at home thank you so much for joining us for the landsat 9 launch we're going to wrap up our television coverage for now but you can keep following live mission updates online at nasa.gov have a wonderful day and now here's a final look a replay of this morning's beautiful liftoff ten nine eight seven six five four three two one ignition and liftoff liftoff of an atlas 5 rocket and landsat 9 continuing the legacy of an irreplaceable 50-year record on our ever-changing planet control system response looks good oh [Music] the blue marble that was our first view of ourselves we really are the blue planet we're hanging out here in the middle of nowhere in fact apollo imagery was part of the justification for putting together

Channel: NASA

Views: 234,256

Rating: 4.9167142 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: OhUOmNTUO9I

Length: 131min 15sec (7875 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 27 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/zion8994]

The Landsat 9 mission is the ninth satellite in the Landsat program and will continue the program's role of monitoring and managing land resources like crops, water and forests. Landsat satellites have been an invaluable resource for scientists since the first satellite launched in 1972, providing nearly 50 years' worth of uninterrupted data to scientists on the ground.

Landsat 9 is a partnership between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) that will continue the Landsat program's critical role of repeat global observations for monitoring, understanding, and managing Earth's natural resources.

All data from LandSat missions is free for use to thousands of scientists, researchers, geologists, climatologists, urban planners, policy analyists, etc.

You can learn more about the mission at: [NASA.gov/landsat9](NASA.gov/landsat9)

[u/f0urtyfive]

Does anyone know why Landsat 9 has such low resolution? Seems like it's matching up with late 80s early 90s tech... I don't understand why they wouldn't improve the capabilities.