Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/62129
Time-sensitive GeoWorld departments such as NetLink, PeopleLink, Product News and Business News now are maintained solely at the GeoPlace.com Web site. Check there often for the latest updates as they happen. USGS Works to Fix Failing Landsat 5 Satellite The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) announced in February 2012 that it would be suspending operations for its Landsat 5 Earth-imaging satellite for an additional 90 days. The agency halted Landsat 5 imaging in November 2011 after a critical electronic component began to show signs of failure. The component is essential for transmit- ting the satellite's Thematic Mapper (TM) data. Previously, a USGS Flight Operations Team tried unsuc- cessfully to recover a backup electronic component. After that failed attempt, the team moved forward with explor- ing potential changes to operational procedures for the primary component. "The challenge of attempting to recover operations of malfunctioning, three-decade-old components in an unmanned satellite orbiting more than 400 miles above Earth is daunting, to say the least," said Marcia McNutt, USGS director. "Regardless of whether any additional data is collected, Landsat 5 has already exceeded all expecta- tions for longevity." USGS officials said that if they're unable to realize any significant improvement in transmitting TM, a very limited amount of transmission life remains. Therefore, TM imag- ing would be prioritized to collect growing-season imagery for the Northern Hemisphere. In the wake of the failures, the agency has been researching the prospect of recovering Landsat 5's sec- ondary imaging instrument, the Multispectral Scanner (MSS), which was switched off years ago. The instrument, which uses a data-transmission scheme that's different from TM, can collect imagery in four spectral bands at 79-meter resolution. MSS data would provide some data Imagery from the Landsat 5 satellite and its Thematic Mapper component shows Louisiana marshlands before and after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. USGS announced in February 2012 that it was extending suspension of operations for the satellite, which has been experiencing transmission difficulties. continuity in the event that TM data no longer could be transmitted. Should USGS be unable to restore TM data transmis- sions or revive the MSS instrument, the agency plans to decommission the satellite. Meanwhile, the agency's Landsat 7 satellite, launched with a five-year design life in 1999, remains in orbit and continues to collect global imagery. And Landsat 8, also known as the Landsat Data Continuity Mission, is scheduled for launch in January 2013. Mapping Tool In early February 2012 at a Danish Parliament flooding conference, the Danish Minister for the Environment launched an online tool for mapping the risk of flooding in Denmark due to rising sea levels. The tool, part of Denmark's national climate- change-adaptation portal (klimatilpasning.dk/en-us), provides visualization for a flooded area for a given sea-level rise. Government specialists as well as the public will have access to the new portal offering. Key to the flooding-visualization tool is a computa- tion performed by Danish software firm SCALGO on Danes Launch Flood-Risk Mobility/GPS Special Issue a 1.6-meter-resolution raster terrain model for all of Denmark. The detailed and massive model contains more than 20 billion cells. Such a detailed model was considered vital for the flooding tool's accuracy, because a high-quality model should ensure that dikes and other small, but important, features and struc- tures are taken into account. Using a hydrology software package from SCALGO, computation for the entire model of Denmark can be done in approximately a day and a half on a nor- mal desktop computer with 4GB of main memory. Components of the new tool also include modules for computing flow accumulation, watersheds and "blue spots" (maximal depressions). APRIL 2O12 / WWW . GEOPLA CE . COM 7 USGS