LANDSAT 5
Country: United States of America
Live Position
Ground Track · Last 90 Minutes
Upcoming Passes · Over Your Location
About This Satellite
Landsat 5 launched on March 1, 1984, with MSS and Thematic Mapper instruments. It far exceeded its three-year design life and supported almost three decades of land imaging. That longevity makes its archive particularly useful for studying gradual change rather than only isolated events.
The older instrument returned near the end
After TM failed in November 2011, operators returned MSS to service. More than 15,000 MSS scenes were collected between June 2012 and January 2013. The final part of the mission was therefore not simply more data from the same instrument used throughout its best-known TM record.
A long-lived platform is not a uniform dataset
For a time series crossing the TM-to-MSS transition, check the sensor, bands, spatial sampling, and processing. The common spacecraft name does not make the measurements interchangeable. A carefully selected archive series is more meaningful than assuming every Landsat 5 image has identical capabilities.
Mission reference: USGS: Landsat 5 mission and instrument history. Editorial review: .
What decades of observations make possible
Repeated land imagery provides a baseline for comparing expanding urban areas, changing agricultural patterns, and environmental disturbance. Landsat 5's long service extended that baseline across several generations of ground processing. Comparisons still need matched conditions and calibrated products; longevity alone cannot remove seasonal or sensor differences.
Reference: USGS: Landsat 5 observation record.
The final command closed the mission
USGS transmitted the final command on June 5, 2013, after disposal activities. This ended the mission but did not erase its archived observations. The catalog may still contain an orbital solution for the physical object; that should never be read as a promise of new TM or MSS images.
Reference: USGS: completion of Landsat 5 decommissioning.
Reading this orbital snapshot
Based on TLE epoch: 2026-09-05. Estimated altitude ranges from 505 km at perigee to 599 km at apogee, a difference of 93 km. The orbital period is about 95.7 minutes. Eccentricity 0.00674 indicates a nearly circular path. In a two-body approximation, perigee speed is 1.01 times apogee speed. These are mean-element estimates, not instantaneous measurements. Distance per orbit uses an ellipse approximation.
Saved build snapshot. If a valid TLE is retrieved, this explanation and the orbit panel update together. Otherwise this dated snapshot is retained.
Ground track is not sensor coverage
An inclination of 98.07 degrees implies approximate geocentric ground-track limits of 81.9 degrees north and south. This is a retrograde orbit, moving against the direction of Earth rotation. The plotted line marks the point beneath the object. It does not represent camera coverage, radio reception, or a guaranteed visible pass.
Accuracy and missing information
The introductory record describes the build snapshot. The orbital snapshot explanation and orbit panel share any successfully retrieved TLE; check the displayed epoch. Reentered objects retain historical data only. Mission history is not rewritten by TLE updates. TLE/SGP4 positions are predictions and can change after maneuvers or updated observations. The 14-day stale-data cutoff is a display safeguard, not an accuracy guarantee. Local passes are geometric predictions, not a visibility forecast. No verified operator or mission status means unknown, not active. Do not use this catalog for collision avoidance or operational flight decisions.
Catalog sources: CelesTrak SATCAT: NORAD 14780 · GCAT: S14780 (source update 2026 Sep 4 2345:57). Supplementary metadata: SatNOGS DB, retrieved 2026-09-05T12:57:25.375Z. Page assembled 2026-09-15. GCAT phase codes describe trajectory phases, not mission health.
Learn more: TLE data · Perigee and apogee · Ground tracks · JOT (Jewawud Live Orbital Map)