As one of the most splendid achievements in civilian earth observation history

the Landsat program has launched six successful satellites that have accomplished a 40-year mission of continuous earth observation.Owing to the program’s excellent technical characteristics

scientific data archiving and distribution strategy

Landsat data have been widely applied in ecological and environmental monitoring

natural resource surveys

college education and government management.The eighth generation of Landsat series

Landsat Data Continuity Mission（LDCM） satellite

is scheduled to launch in February 2013 with two sensor p ayloads

an Operational Land Imager（OLI）

and a Thermal Infrared Sensor（TIRS）.Compared with the previous ETM +

OLI and TIRS have advanced band specifications

radiometric performance and scanning systems.OLI collects image data for nine spectral bands with a new blue band for coastal environment monitoring and a shortwave infrared band for cirrus cloud detection.TIRS is designed with two thermal infrared bands.After a successful launch

LDCM（renamed as Landsat 8） will extend the Landsat data record and carry on the mission of earth observation.