Next June NASA will launch the EOS AM-1 mission, followed in July by the Landsat 7 mission. Since some of the scientific objectives require long-term observation, beyond the six-year lifetime of Landsat 7 and EOS AM-1, NASA has started initial planning of near-term EOS follow-on missions. To guide the planning of these missions, five science themes have been identified: land cover and land use change; seasonal to interannual climate prediction; natural hazards; long-term climate variability; and atmospheric ozone. Planning for near- term follow-on missions focuses on acquiring data within the land cover and land use change theme, providing broad continuity with EOS AM-1 and Landsat 7, but not mechanically replicating the measurements taken by those missions. Strawman measurements for the EOS follow-on missions include radiation budget; polarization; bi-directional reflectance distribution function; global land and atmosphere imaging; global ocean imaging; and high resolution imaging.

Date Published: 31 December 1997
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 3221, Sensors, Systems, and Next-Generation Satellites, (31 December 1997); doi: 10.1117/12.298076

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 3221:
Sensors, Systems, and Next-Generation Satellites
Hiroyuki Fujisada, Editor(s)