Landsat 8/9
30m multispectral plus thermal, free, global, continuing the 50-year Landsat record
When to use
- Long-term land-cover change studies leveraging the unbroken Landsat record back to 1972
- Thermal infrared analysis (urban heat, surface temperature, fire detection)
- Continental and global mapping where 30 m is sufficient
- Cross-validation with Sentinel-2 in harmonised time series
When it's the wrong fit
- Field-scale agriculture (30 m too coarse for many farms)
- Object detection or detailed feature extraction
- Sub-weekly monitoring
Processing levels
Five processing levels. Levels 1–3 are applied by default on every order; pansharpening (4) runs automatically when the sensor has a panchromatic band; mosaicking (5) runs automatically when the AOI spans multiple scenes. Specify any level explicitly if you need to override the default.
| L | Output | What's applied | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Raw | Digital numbers (sensor counts) with no calibration or geometric correction. Delivered as unprojected GeoTIFF with sensor metadata. | On request |
| 1 | Orthorectified | Geometric correction onto a DEM. Every pixel sits at its true ground position. Customer-supplied GCPs accepted at no extra cost. | Default |
| 2 | Surface reflectance | TOA radiometric correction plus atmospheric correction. Output is the actual fraction of light reflected by the ground, comparable across dates, sensors, and sun angles. | Default |
| 3 | Pansharpened | Gram-Schmidt fusion of panchromatic and multispectral bands. Spectral ratios preserved for downstream analytics. | Default |
| 4 | Mosaicked | Seamless multi-scene composite over the AOI with ML cloud/cirrus masking and custom seam-line path-finding. Applied automatically when the AOI spans more than one scene. | Default* |
*Mosaicking applies when the AOI spans more than one scene. Single-scene orders skip it.
Water masks, tree masks, glint handling, lidar-aligned reflectance, aquatic atmospheric correction, region-tuned models — anything your downstream pipeline requires. Quoted with the order.
Specifications
| General | |
| Provider | USGS / NASA |
| Country | United States |
| System type | Constellation |
| Product type | Multispectral + Thermal |
| Availability | Free archive |
| Available since | 2013 (Landsat 8) / 2021 (Landsat 9) |
| Sensor | |
| Resolution | Multispectral: 30 m · Panchromatic: 15 m · Thermal infrared: 100 m |
| Bit depth | 16-bit |
| Swath width | 185 km |
| Off-nadir range | Up to 75° incidence angle (limited steering) |
| Constellation | 2 satellites (Landsat 8, Landsat 9) |
| Orbit | Sun-synchronous, 705 km |
| Revisit | 8 days (combined) — in practice 8 days |
| Acquisition modes | Mono |
| Reference | |
| CRS | UTM-WGS84 |
| Positional accuracy | 12 m CE90 absolute |
| Processing levels | Level 2SP (orthorectified, surface reflectance) |
| Tasking and catalog conditions | |
| Minimum AOI width | catalog 185 × 180 km scene output |
| Minimum charge area | archive Free |
| Geographic restrictions | None — global free data |
Live tracking
See all Geopera's satellites →Landsat 8/9 positions propagated from fresh TLEs in your browser. Satellites rendered at true orbital altitude, oriented nadir-pointing. The emerald rectangles on the ground are each sensor's current swath footprint.
Spectral bands
| Band | Designation and wavelength |
|---|---|
| B1 | 435-451 nm (Coastal/Aerosol) |
| B2 | 452-512 nm (Blue) |
| B3 | 533-590 nm (Green) |
| B4 | 636-673 nm (Red) |
| B5 | 851-879 nm (NIR) |
| B6 | 1566-1651 nm (SWIR-1) |
| B7 | 2107-2294 nm (SWIR-2) |
| B8 | 503-676 nm (Panchromatic) |
| B9 | 1363-1384 nm (Cirrus) |
| B10 | 10600-11190 nm (TIR-1) |
| B11 | 11500-12510 nm (TIR-2) |
Delivery manifest
Each order delivers as a single archive containing the following files.
landsat-8-9_[order_id].zip
├── data/ 11 band files, GeoTIFF, 16-bit
├── metadata.xml acquisition parameters, calibration coefficients
├── metadata.txt human-readable summary
├── masks/ cloud, environmental, transparency
├── thumbnails/ PNG previews
└── overviews/ JPEG quicklook
Compare with
Closest alternatives by resolution and product type.
| Spec | Landsat 8/9 | KOMPSAT-3A | Sentinel-2 | Dragonette-1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Resolution | 30 m | 40 cm | 10 m | 5.30 m |
| Provider | USGS / NASA | SIIS (KARI) | European Space Agency (ESA) | Wyvern |
| Country | United States | South Korea | European Union | Canada |
| Type | Multispectral + Thermal | Multispectral + Thermal | Multispectral | Hyperspectral |
| Availability | Free archive | Tasking + catalog | Free archive | Tasking + catalog |
Spectral indices
115 spectral indices are compatible with Landsat 8/9. The most-used: NDVI,EVI,NDWI,MNDWI,SAVI,NBR,NDBI,GNDVI,MSAVI. See the full spectral profile for the complete list and band mappings.
Ready to order Landsat 8/9?
Browse the catalog, place a tasking order, or request a custom processing pipeline through the Geopera portal. We respond to quote requests within one business day.