LANDSAT satellite

First land remote sensing satellite (Landsat) launched information from such satellites is playing an increasingly important role in identifying from space potential deposits of oil, natural gas and other minerals. 

LandSat Series of NASA satellites. The first was launched in April 1972. The most improved satellite LandSat-7 was launched in April 1999 in a 750 km orbit. It has eight spectral intervals with spatial resolutions 15 km, 30km, and 60 km with a 185 km swathwidth. 

In the lab, future expansion plans include the use of optical scanners for reading sample labels, operation of robots to relieve some of the manual operations and an artificial intelligence system to track quality control. In other areas, there will be an increase in the number of real time monitors, not necessarily because real time data is needed, but the cost can be small compared to sending out a field team. There will be some applications of direct monitoring by satellites such as LANDSAT D. Both of these will be incorporated into water quality models which will allow more intelligent choices of where to send a field team to collect samples for detailed analysis. 

The LST and total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) are positively correlated. The methodology followed is based on the fact that most of the satellites carry a thermal infra-red band which can be used for LST estimation. The spatio-temporal variation in the thermodynamic properties of surface material has been mapped in order to identify hydrocarbon polluted surfaces using Landsat TM data. Emissivity is a strong indicator of compositional variation in silicate minerals which make up the bulk of the earth s surface material. Emissivity affects the apparent temperature due to changes in the thermal properties of materials (conductivity, density, capacity, and inertia). There are several algorithms proposed to estimate LST from remotely sensed data. The most common of these are mono-window and split window methods [22-25], the latter was used initially to estimate sea surface temperature. 

The areas surrounding the oil lakes recovered gradually on their own and supported limited native vegetation. This was evident in the Landsat Thematic Imaginary analyzed in 1995 [30]. However, some of the oil lake beds that were covered by veneers of sand were not visible in the satellite images, but still pose... 

The Landsat Program is jointly administered by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Geological Survey. Its satellites are used to provide digital photographs of the Earth s surface. The first Landsat satelhte was launched on July 23, 1972. The Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) is scheduled to launch in December, 2012, and will provide essential data for the study of the Earth s climate and ecosystems. 

Fig. 6.83. Forest coverage map for southern Sweden, processed from LANDSAT and SPOT satellite imagery. A magnification of the great laJces area is included. Forest pixels are dark in the pictures (Courtesy Swedish Space Corporation)...

Features Extraction from Satellite Data, Fig. 3 Original Landsat image left) and two computed nonlinear principal components center and right)... 

The most spectacular instruments of this type have been the Thematic Mapper on the Landsat spacecraft and the radiometer on the French satellite SPOT. In the... 

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