Thematic Mapper (ETM), acquisition and downlink of up to 400 scenes daily, more timely 
turnaround for the data, and the production of special panchromatic data with 15 meter resolution. 
The goal of the mission is to provide data quality equal to or greater than that provided by the current 
Landsat 5 system. In addition a two mission capability has been designed providing for two 
complete spacecraft and a minimum five year design lifetime for each satellite. 
4.2 THE SPACE SEGMENT 
The space segment will be designed to perform the mission plan in terms of the collection and 
forwarding of image data to all ground stations. It will use the same orbit and ground track as 
Landsat 5. It will however use a different bus. In addition it will carry an ETM capable of at least 
three modes of operation. In each mode the detectors can be operated at one of two gain settings, 
This will alleviate some of the problems noted with Landsats 4 and 5 (5). 
4.3 THE GROUND SEGMENT 
The Landsat 6 ground segment will depart from the existing system in a number of ways. The data 
capture facility will be located in Oklahoma rather than relying on two transportable ground stations, 
This location allows nearly 100% coverage of the continental USA through real time contact with 
the satellite. TDRSS will be used for command and control purposes only. Since it is felt that use 
of state of the art tape recorders on board the satellite will make the system more responsive than it 
is today there will be no attempt to transmit video data captured by ETM to the data capture facility 
via TDRSS. The modular design of the payload allows scenarios where, should the tape recorders 
be lost due to an electronic failure, they can be replaced by astronaut EVA. 
4.4 NEW PRODUCTS 
Product types are currently being developed. As a minimum the standard TM products available 
today will be continued. In addition unique panchromatic data and "sharpened" TM plus 
panchromatic film products are under study. 
5.0 SUMMARY 
The Landsat series of satellites have been active since July 1972. There have been three distinct 
production phases for data eventually made available to the user. Future systems promise to expand 
the product list. In addition, the time from acquisition to user product delivery is under study for the 
Landsat 6 system with the goal of significantly improving the response to all user requests. 
6.0 REFERENCES 
1. B.P. Clark, Computer Sciences Corporation, TR-82/6008, (October 1982) 
2. B. P. Clark, ISPRS Commission II Proceedings, (September 1982) 
3. V. V. Salomonson and H. Mannheimer, Proceedings of the PECORA VIII Symposium, 
(1983) 
4. V. V. Salomonson, Editor, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 
Volume GE-22, No.3, (May 1984) 
5. B. L. Markham and J.L. Barker, Editors, Photogrametric Engineering & Remote Sensing, 
Volume LI, No.9, (September 1985) 
6. B.P. Clark, L. Fusco, and J. Murphy, Invited Paper, ISPRS XV th Congress Meeting, 
(1984) 
7. Landsat Data User Notes, Supplemental Issue, Published by EROS Data Center, Mundt 
Federal Building, Souix Falls, South Dakota (July 1985) 
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