-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        opening up of Landsat archive for no-charge ordering
Date:   Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:22:09 -0500
From:   John C Fouke <[log in to unmask]>
To:     Maps-L



Today, the USGS released a technical announcement outlining the plan for

the release of no-charge Landsat data.  Over the next 9 months, EROS will
be opening up the Landsat archive for no-charge ordering.  Please see the
announcement below for details.



Imagery for Everyone?
Timeline Set to Release Entire USGS Landsat Archive at No Charge.

RESTON, VA ? The USGS Landsat archive is an unequaled 35-year record of
the Earth?s surface that is valuable for a broad range of uses, ranging
from climate change science to forest management to emergency response,
plus countless other user applications.  Under a transition toward a
National Land Imaging Program sponsored by the Secretary of the Interior,
the USGS is pursuing an aggressive schedule to provide users with
electronic access to any Landsat scene held in the USGS-managed national
archive of global scenes dating back to Landsat 1, launched in 1972.  By
February 2009, any archive scene selected by a user ? with no restriction
on cloud cover ? will be processed automatically to a standard product
recipe, using such parameters as the Universe Transverse Mercator
projection, and staged for electronic retrieval.  In addition, newly
acquired scenes meeting a cloud cover threshold of 20% or below will be
processed to the standard recipe and placed on line for at least six
months, after which they will remain available for selection from the
archive.

Newly acquired, minimally cloudy Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus
(ETM+) data covering North America and Africa are already being
distributed by the USGS over the Internet at no charge, with expansion to
full global coverage of incoming Landsat 7 data to be completed by July
2008 (see timeline below).  The full archive of historical Landsat 7 ETM+
data acquired by the USGS since launch in 1999 will become available for
selection and downloading by the end of September 2008.  At that time, all
Landsat 7 data purchasing options from the USGS, wherein users pay for
on-demand processing to various parameters will be discontinued.

By the end of December of 2008, both incoming Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper
(TM) data and all Landsat 5 TM data acquired by the USGS since launch
(1984) will become available, with all Landsat 4 TM (1982-1985) and
Landsat 1-5 Multi-Spectral Scanner (MSS) (1972-1994) data becoming
available by the end of January 2009.  All Landsat data purchasing options
from the USGS will be discontinued by February 2009, once the entire
Landsat archive can be accessed at no charge.

Landsat scenes can be previewed and downloaded using the USGS Global
Visualization Viewer at http://glovis.usgs.gov [under ?Select Collection?
choose Landsat archive: L7 SLC-off (2003-present)].  Scenes can also be
selected using the USGS Earth Explorer tool at
http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov [under ?Select Your Dataset? choose Landsat
Archive: L7 SLC-off (2003-present)].  For further information on Landsat
satellites and products, see http://landsat.usgs.gov