The Thermal Infrared Sensor 2 ( TIRS-2 ) will fly aboard the Landsat 9 spacecraft and leverages the Thermal Infrared Sensor ( TIRS ) design currently flying on Landsat 8 . TIRS-2 will provide similar science data as TIRS , but is not a buildto - print rebuild due to changes in requirements and improvements in absolute accuracy . The heritage TIRS design has been modified to reduce the influence of stray light and to add redundancy for higher reliability over a longer mission life . The TIRS-2 development context differs from the TIRS scenario , adding to the changes . The TIRS-2 team has also learned some lessons along the way .