NASA has awarded a $3.29 million five-year contract to South Dakota State University’s Geographic Information Science Center of Excellence to make Landsat satellite data easier to use and access via the Internet. Landsat images became free of charge this year, but the imagery still requires an expert to process and access the data. The grant is designed to provide pre-processed data online, and to address the data gap with the current Landsat sensors.
Today, more than 22% of the Landsat imagery is unusable due to a partial failure of the sensor. The plan is to fuse Landsat imagery with MODIS satellite imagery in order to provide a seamless pre-processed satellite product for the end users. The resulting data will reside on USGS servers and be accessible through USGS when the project is complete.
