Nasa has successfully completed the critical design review (CDR) of the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM).
The CDR confirms the maturity of the LDCM design and supports transition to full-scale fabrication, assembly, integration and testing of the mission elements that will lead to observatory integration and testing.
The review analysed various aspects including the LDCM spacecraft, instrument payload, system-level test plans for flight hardware and software, systems engineering, mission assurance and the ground system.
The spacecraft provides data on land-surface changes to understand the impact of land-use changes on climate, food and fibre production, water resources and national security.
Constructed by Orbital, the LDCM spacecraft will carry two instruments: the operational land imager (OLI) and the thermal infrared sensor (TIRS).
The OLI, which is under development, will capture images for nine spectral bands in the shortwave portion of the spectrum, while the TIRS will collect data for two longwave spectral bands.
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By GlobalDataNASA plans to launch LDCM in December 2012 as the follow-on to Landsat-7.