Del Jenstrom Steven Pszcolka Vicki Dulski Jason Hair Joel McCorkel Geir Kvaran Kurtis Thome Matthew Montanaro Jeffery Pedelty Cody Anderson Michael J. Choate Julia Barsi Ed Kaita Jeffery Miller Brian Markham 2021 <p><span>Landsat 9 is currently undergoing testing at the integrated observatory level in preparation for launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in 2021. Landsat 9 will replace Landsat 7 in orbit, 8 days out of phase with Landsat 8. Landsat 9 is largely a copy of Landsat 8 in terms of instrumentation, with an Operational Land Imager (OLI), model #2 and a Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS), model #2. The TIRS-2 is more significantly changed from TIRS with increased redundancy, as well as changes to the telescope baffling to improve stray light control and a revised scene select mirror encoder mechanism. Data quality of the Landsat 9 instruments is comparable to, or better than the Landsat 8 ones, with an increase to 14 bits of data transmitted and more detailed pre-launch characterization for OLI-2, and with more detailed characterization of the TIRS-2 pre-launch, in addition to the improved stray light control. The performance of the two instruments is summarized and compared to that of the Landsat 8 instruments.</span></p> application/pdf 10.1117/12.2569748 en Landsat 9 mission update and status text