# Presentation: 812093

## Landsat Global Archive Consolidation(LGAC)

**July 15, 2008**
**Presented By:**
**Steven Covington**
**Landsat 5 & 7 Flight Systems Manager**
**Senior Project Leader, The Aerospace Corporation**
_**[Steven.Covington@nasa.gov](mailto:Steven.Covington@nasa.gov)**__**,**_** (301) 614-5211**

## Agenda

**Background**
**Process for Project**
**Intent of this Activity**
**Historical Perspective**
**Challenges**

## Background

**The USGS is evaluating the process, cost and relative merit for consolidating a copy of the global archive of historical Landsat imagery at EROS**
- There is growing concern about the state of historical archives, especially at inactive stations where we have no operational contact
- The global historical archive extent has not been actively monitored
- There is an increasing interest from user community and USGS/NASA for more frequent surveys
- New tools such as LASSI are being developed and made available to support large scale scene selections/data mining
- A consolidated archive would better support/facilitate global change analysis and assessment

## Goal of LGAC

**Describe the initiative to the International Cooperators (IC) and determine their willingness to participate in this effort**
**Determine the location, extent and condition of the historical Landsat archives around the world**
**Generate a list of the instrument (MSS, TM, ETM+), data format and media type at each location**
**Assess the equipment, software, logistics and level of effort necessary to acquire, ingest, process and archive the data**
**Develop an estimated cost and schedule for project**
**Report out to USGS management and the Landsat Science Team on the findings**

## Historical Perspective

**Over the past 35 years, over 50 ground stations have been configured to receive Landsat data**
**Currently, there are 24 ground stations around the world that are configured to operationally receive Landsat data (19 currently active)**
**Beyond the current stations, there are 9 historical collection sites operated by 7 organizations that we believe could have a significant, unique historical archive**

## Process Description for the Project

**Pre-Phase A: ****Landsat Global Archive Consolidation Study**
- Perform initial study of global archive content
- Define project process
- Promote the project within the International Cooperator (IC) community through emails and meetings
- Contact specific inactive ground stations to encourage participation in the project
- Perform survey of ICs to determine ROM estimate of data volume in global archive
- Establish a notional cost basis for work
- Present study results to USGS management
***Gain Authorization to proceed to Phase A***

## Process for Project

**Phase A: Develop Detailed Plan for Implementation**
- Create a definitive list of scenes to be collected from around the world (through Landsat Metadata Definition Document (LMDD) implementation)
- Acq Date, Path/Row, Media, Location
- Identify redundancy with current US archive holdings
- Identify areas of investment necessary for project execution
- Software: Ingest, processing, web support
- Hardware: Media Tape Drives, Archive media, infrastructure upgrades (storage capacity)
- Personnel requirements for implementation and execution
- Negotiate formal project agreements with the IC participants
- Identify roles and responsibilities of ICs versus USGS
- Document deliverable items (data, PCD, ephemeris), delivery schedule, delivery media, schedule
- Establish funding responsibilities between ICs and USGS
- Create a detailed implementation schedule and cost estimate
***Present Detailed Implementation Plan and gain authorization to proceed with execution***

## Process for Project

**Phase B: Development of Project Capabilities**
- Procure necessary media and archive hardware
- Develop necessary software
- Purchase media and consumables
- Formalize Project Agreements with participating ICs
**Phase C: Execute Archive Consolidation**
- ICs copy archive content to agreed format and media
- Delivery of media to EROS
- Ingest of data, creation of metadata
- Work problematic media to recover data
- Tracking/communications of progress via web-tools
- Completed archive consolidation

## Content of the U.S. archive

| Satellite | Sensor | Date Range | Data
Format | Scenes | Volume | Media |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| L1 - 5 | MSS | Jul 23, 1972 – Nov 18, 1993 | MSS-X, WBV | 521,999 | 15.71 TB | DLT 7000 |
| L4 – L5 | TM | Mar 1, 1984 – Current | TM-A, TM-R, RCC | 729,387 | 365 TB | 9940B |
| L7 | ETM+ | Apr 15, 1999 – Current | L0Ra, RCC | 761,709 | 707 TB | 9940B |
|  |  |  |  | 2,013,095 | 1088 TB |  |

**USGS Archive Content**

## Content of the foreign archives

| Satellite | Sensor | Date Range | Data
Format | Scenes | Volume | Media |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| L1 - 5 | MSS | 1972 – 1999 | MSS | 1,204,727 | 72 TB | DLT 7000
Sony SD-1
HDDT |
| L4/L5 | TM | Aug 17, 1982 – Current | TM-A, TM-R, RCC | 2,583,339 | 777 TB | DLT 7000
Sony SD-1 |
| L7 | ETM+ | July 1, 1999 – Current | L0Ra, RCC | 721,579 | 332 TB | DLT 7000
Sony SD-1
SAIT1-500
HDD |
|  |  |  |  | 4,509,645 | 1181 TB |  |

**Archive Content of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Ecuador, ESA, Hiroshima IT, Pakistan, South Africa, Thailand**

## Global Archive Content

## Challenges

**Communications**
- Reestablishing contact with older, possibly inactive stations
**Technical**
- Working equipment compatible with older media
- Media in poor or unstable condition due to age or storage conditions
- Determining data tape formats
- Determining image data formats
- Assembling/determining necessary ancillary information to successfully process the imagery
**Programmatic**
- Costs and logistics of retrieving the global archive
- Cost of engineering, software, ingestion and storage

## Next Steps...

**Used downlink records to estimate likely archive locations and extent**
**Delivered a presentation to the active ICs at a the last Landsat Ground Station Operations Working Group meeting discussing the project**
- All station present expressed support for the activity
**Develop partial list of data types, formats, medias and interest**
- Need to initiate contact with historical IC station operators
**Develop an initial estimate on the state of the global Landsat archive held by the IC community**
**Transition study activities to USGS International Ground Station Network Manager (Steve Labahn)**
**Create a high-level plan for consolidating a copy of that archive at EROS**
- Include technical challenges, level of effort estimates, a coarse schedule and costs
**Present the plan to USGS and Science Team**
**Wait for authorization and funding to proceed**

## Backup Slides

## Current Stations

## Historical Stations

**Are there other stations we should be considering?**