Technical Announcement: USGS Defines Roles for New Satellite Mission

[Denver Makle <dmakle@xxxxxxxx>]

USGS Defines Roles for
New Satellite Mission

Scientists and engineers from the
Department of the Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and NASA are
moving forward in planning a successor to the Landsat 7 satellite mission.
With the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) satellite expected to launch
in 2011, the two agencies have announced their roles and responsibilities
in mission development, subsystems procurement, and on-orbit operations.


NASA and USGS share responsibility
for the LDCM. NASA will procure and/or develop the space segment, consisting
of the satellite, instrument, and launch services and will also perform
on-orbit satellite checkout. The USGS will develop and implement the ground
segment, consisting of the ground receiving station network, a satellite
operations facility, and archive and image processing facilities.  After
launch and check-out, NASA will transfer the satellite to the USGS to perform
flight operations, image-data capture and archiving, and product dissemination.


The USGS will use NASA procurement
services to acquire mission operations software for commanding the satellite
and instrument, thus ensuring compatibility with NASA’s space segment
procurement. The USGS will competitively procure ground segment resources,
including the primary ground receiving station at the USGS EROS Center
near Sioux Falls, South Dakota, as well as supplemental capabilities to
ensure comprehensive and timely global data acquisition. The data-collection
planning capability will be modeled after the successful Landsat 7 Long-Term
Acquisition Plan to collect global land image data and will be developed
through the USGS EROS Technical Support Services Contract. The mission
operations facility will be configured at the USGS EROS Center through
commercial facility modification contracts. The flight operations team
will also be procured competitively, similar to the approach employed for
the Landsat 5 and 7 missions. 

Data archive and user portal capabilities
will be procured competitively, while image processing functionality will
be developed through the USGS EROS Technical Support Services Contract.
Independent ground systems architecture analysis and integration will be
led by the USGS and supported by Federally-Funded Research and Development
Center resources. Finally, overall system integration into the existing
USGS infrastructure will be ensured through the USGS EROS Technical Support
Services Contract.

Further details regarding the USGS
LDCM acquisition strategy can be found at http://ldcm.usgs.gov/.

Denver Makle
Public Affairs Specialist
U.S. Geological Survey, MS 119
Reston, VA  20192

Office (703) 648-4732
Fax (703) 648-4466

Attachment: LDCM roles press release rab1.doc
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