LANDSAT 9
Country: United States · Also known as: 2021-088A
Live Position
Ground Track · Last 90 Minutes
Upcoming Passes · Over Your Location
About This Satellite
Landsat 9 extends the joint NASA-USGS record of Earth's land surface. It carries an Operational Land Imager and a Thermal Infrared Sensor, separating reflected-light observations from emitted thermal radiation. Their products support comparisons of landscapes across time rather than continuous live video of a chosen place.
Sixteen days and eight days mean different things
The mission has a 16-day repeat cycle, with an eight-day offset from Landsat 8. The shorter interval describes the pair's complementary sampling, not Landsat 9 orbiting Earth only once every eight days. Each revolution takes roughly 99 minutes in the nominal orbit; Earth rotation and the orbit pattern determine when a particular ground path repeats.
More brightness levels do not mean smaller pixels
Landsat 9's OLI uses 14-bit quantization compared with Landsat 8's 12-bit OLI data. This improves discrimination of signal levels; it is not a claim of four times finer spatial resolution. Radiometric, spectral, spatial, and temporal resolution describe different properties and should not be combined into one vague measure of image quality.
Mission reference: USGS: Landsat 9. Editorial review: .
A launch that continued a measurement record
Landsat 9 launched on September 27, 2021. Continuity matters because a forest, farm, or coastline can be compared with earlier observations in the Landsat archive. Differences between sensors and acquisition conditions still require attention: continuity provides a framework for comparison, not permission to treat every raw pixel from different satellites as identical.
Reference: NASA: Landsat 9 mission and continuity.
Heat is measured separately from reflected light
OLI-2 observes reflected visible and infrared light, whereas TIRS-2 measures thermal radiation. The thermal sensor design reduces the stray-light problem encountered by its predecessor. A surface-temperature product involves processing and atmospheric considerations; it should not be confused with air temperature measured by a weather station or with the colour of a visible-light scene.
Reference: NASA: OLI-2 and TIRS-2.
Reading this orbital snapshot
Based on TLE epoch: 2026-09-05. Estimated altitude ranges from 702 km at perigee to 704 km at apogee, a difference of 2 km. The orbital period is about 98.8 minutes. Eccentricity 0.00014 indicates a nearly circular path. In a two-body approximation, perigee speed is 1.00 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 98.22 degrees implies approximate geocentric ground-track limits of 81.8 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 49260 · GCAT: S49260 (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)