The Aerospace Daily (Article: 127814) dated April 1, 1999. "Private sector is NASA's preferred provider for next Landsat". Copyright 1999 - The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

NASA would like to give the private sector another chance to take over the Landsat Earth remote sensing satellite program, and will decide late next year or early in 2001 on whether to pursue a commercial procurement of the follow-on spacecraft to the Landsat 7 platform it plans to launch next month.

Ghassem Asrar, associate administrator for Earth science, told reporters yesterday the U.S. space agency is studying three options for the Landsat follow-on procurement - purely commercial, a government "partnership" with the private sector and a traditional government-led procurement.

"The preferred option is to naturally look at the private sector and see if indeed they can meet the scientific requirements put in place ... by the Landsat program," Asrar said. "That is our preferred option."

Landsat 7, built with early support from the U.S. Defense Dept. (DAILY, Nov. 13, 1991) at a cost to NASA of about $450 million after the private Earth Observing Satellite Company (EOSAT) established during the Reagan Administration proved unable to finance a satellite on its own, is scheduled for launch on a Boeing Delta II from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., on April 15. It will continue a data set of wide frame surface scenes dating back to 1982 that researchers use to monitor changes in such areas as forest cover, land use, crop yield and natural disasters.

Also set for launch late this year is Earth Orbiter 1 (EO-1), the first technology testbed built under NASA's New Millennium program that will focus on Earth observation. It will include a hyperspectral imager and an advanced land imager to continue the Landsat data set at substantial mass, volume and cost savings, and will incorporate other cost-saving technologies in propulsion, power, communications and other spacecraft-bus functions.

Asram said the EO-1 technology can play into any of the three procurement options for a Landsat follow-on. Darrel Williams, who represents the interests of Landsat data users as Landsat 7 project scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center, said the new technology could cut the cost of data to the point where a private venture could make a profit on its sale.

EO-1 technology could cut costs "To try to make it go to a true cost recovery it's a significant challenge," Williams said. "We'll just have to see [if] the faster-better-cheaper approach that we're trying to demonstrate in the technologies on the Earth Orbiter-1 later this year, maybe the cost of the instrument and the data downlink will come to the point where they can make a profit and sell the data at a price that everybody can still get engaged."

Data from Landsat 7 will cost $475 for a 185-by-183-kilometer scene processed to "level 0," and $600 for a "level 1" scene that has received more processing. Williams suggested that Landsat data will not compete with the higher resolution commercial satellites coming on line because of its larger scenes, and may actually spur the commercial marketplace by providing accurate mapping to guide the "point-and-shoot" high-resolution platforms.

"One of the findings in the public law in 1992 that brought Landsat control back to the government was ... that the cost of the data during the privatization era had precluded its use," Williams said. "The cost had gone up to an average of around $4,500 per scene. In addition to initial cost, there was also a copyright protection, and so it made it practically impossible to use it, for example, within an educational framework in the secondary schools .... It was just cost prohibitive."

Among the improvements to Landsat 7 is a solid-state recorder that can store about 100 scenes, which will allow the spacecraft to update its total global coverage four times a year for monitoring seasonal changes.

The spacecraft's Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM Plus) was built by Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing, while Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space built the spacecraft at its Valley Force, Pa., facility.

The Landsat 7 launch was originally scheduled for July 1998, but was delayed after a power supply on the ETM Plus instrument failed twice during thermal vacuum tests (DAILY, March 13, 1998). Phil Sabelhaus, Landsat 7 project manager at Goddard, said the launch delay "was caused by a need for changes in the design of the electrical power-supply hardware for the spacecraft's instrument."

Landsat 5, launched in March 1984, is still operating, and will be used to calibrate the Landsat 7 instruments. Landsat 6, built under EOSAT management with federal support, was lost on launch in 1993 (DAILY, Oct. 7, 1993).