Landsat Science Team Strategy - USGS Science Team Composition

The Landsat Science Team combines USGS and NASA agency scientists and engineers with a group of external scientists, engineers, and application specialists.

The USGS and NASA co-chair the Landsat Science Team. A Landsat Science Team leader selected by the Team members serves as a spokesperson for the Team and represents the perspectives and recommendations of the team to the USGS and NASA.

The USGS Landsat Science Team co-chair is responsible for convening and leading Science Team meetings, and with the NASA co-chair, sets scientific and technical objectives for the team. The USGS and NASA co-chairs coordinate technical communications between the Science Team and the USGS and NASA Landsat engineering staff involved in LDCM development and enabling technologies and techniques for exploiting the historical archive of Landsat multispectral scanner (MSS), Thematic Mapper (TM), and Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) data.

The external members of the Landsat Science Team consist of principal investigators (PIs) and their co-investigators representing the larger Landsat science and applications community. As representatives of the science and applications community, the Landsat Science Team is expected to provide perspectives on topics that are important within the user community, including the following topics:

Data Characterization

Assessment of radiometric and geometric characteristics and performance of the LDCM Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) instruments
Cross-comparisons of OLI and TIRS measurements with past Landsat instruments
Methods and techniques for the merging and integration of Landsat data with measurements collected by other land imaging satellite instruments

Landsat Science Data Products

Algorithms and approaches for developing Landsat Climate Data Records
Requirements, strategies, and algorithms for developing Climate Data Records and Essential Climate Variables (e.g., land cover change)
Defining new innovative Landsat standard and derived products

Data Applications

Advanced methods or strategies for multi-decadal and large-area land change assessments
New applications of LDCM data sets
New applications and research capabilities resulting from the Landsat free data policy
Value of Landsat for addressing societal issues