Australia Joins US-Led Landsat Next Program

As the United States prepares to shift from the legacy Landsat program to the next generation Landsat Next constellation, new players in space have been integrated with the program to support broad reaching global observation. Australia has formally joined the United States-led Landsat Next satellite program as a core partner, building on nearly half a century of collaboration in satellite land imaging across the globe. 

NASA’s Landsat program is one of the longest running Earth observatory systems ever operated. On 23 July 1972, the Earth Resources Technology Satellite was launched. This was eventually renamed to Landsat 1 in 1975. The most recent, Landsat 9, was launched on 27 September 2021. Headquartered at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, Landsat has remained a vital partner to both government and industry throughout its program cycle. To increase capabilities across the board, NASA has begun work on the Landsat Next constellation, which is projected for launch in 2030/2031. Landsat Next will be a constellation of three identical observatories sent into orbit on the same launch vehicle. The triplet observatories will be spaced 120 degrees apart at an orbital altitude of 653 kilometers (406 miles).

The Landsat Next triplet will provide an improved collective 6-day temporal revisit, a significant upgrade from the 16-day repeat interval of either Landsat 8 or Landsat 9. The temporal frequency will increase the probability of acquiring cloud-free scenes and enhance the monitoring and management of dynamic and changing landscapes. These new spacecraft will provide a number of key climate observations, which feed into broader applications for economics, geopolitics and more. Through repeated, ground based observation, the spacecraft can provide near-real time observations of land use, development, forest cover, crop yield, and disaster management. These capabilities also feed into a broader network of observation and intelligence gathering of the rapidly developing Indo-Pacific region. 

Foreign Minister Penny Wong and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed a bilateral statement at the Australia-US Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) this week, furthering cooperation in recent years which has seen the licensed production of Virginia class submarines and greater cooperation in space and defense capabilities. The formal signing is a milestone for Australia’s involvement in the project, which will map the Earth’s surface and support mining exploration, environmental monitoring, agriculture and disaster management. Australia’s contribution is one of the first times the Landsat program has adopted an official international partner, having previously worked in tandem with similar international programs such as Sentinel. 

Under the agreement, Australia will commit AUD 207.4 million over the next four years for Geoscience Australia to develop advanced data processing and analytics capabilities. The funding will also provide necessary support to the Landsat Next mission through upgraded ground station and tracking capabilities in Alice Springs. The Landsat Next program, to be launched in 2031, will continue nearly 50 years of Earth observation collaboration between Geoscience Australia and the United States Geological Survey – now through more direct data sharing. This agreement comes into play after a Technology Safeguard Agreement for increased space activity was signed between the US and Australia in July, enabling greater data sharing and openness in support of launch operations. This agreement could bolster the nascent Australian space industry, which has not seen a launch from Australian soil since the British Black Arrow program in 1971.  

Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Penny Wong said the satellite data delivered through this partnership will not only benefit Australia and the US, but its critical insights will help the Indo-Pacific to optimize food security and agricultural production, improve urban infrastructure planning, and prepare for disasters. The signing bolsters recent contributions to AUKUS, the joint US-UK-AUS security cooperative that seeks to counter China in the Pacific amidst growing tensions between the East and West. Australia’s posture of alignment with the United States has grown warmer in response to this threat, and the need for space based observational awareness has likely been a sticking point for the Pacific nation. 

Several other Pacific nations have bolstered their cooperation with the United States in recent years, facing growing threats from China in the region. South Korea, Japan and the Philippines have all made commitments to the ongoing Artemis program, an open standard forward international lunar program. Notably, Administrator Bill Nelson affirmed that a Japanese astronaut would be the first international astronaut to land alongside an American on the Moon’s South Pole, potentially as soon as Artemis III. Space, while not typically a geopolitical trend setter, is increasingly becoming an area in which cooperation mirrors action on the ground – with both the Artemis Accords and ILRS Coalition forming an all too familiar reflection of terrestrial geopolitics.

Edited by Beverly Casillas