The calibration accuracy of Landsat data is under the responsibility of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science Center (EROS) and South Dakota State University (SDSU). The calibration has always relied on the Landsat Calibration Validation Science Team (CVST), including people from NASA GSFC, USGS EROS, SDSU, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), University of Arizona (U of A) and Rochester Institute of Science and Technology (RIT).

Radiometric Calibration

The Landsat MSS instrument has been placed on the radiometric scale of the Landsat-5 TM instrument and is useful for long term studies.

This calibration has been validated by comparing MSS, TM, ETM+ and Landsat 8 OLI data based on measurements done over ground targets that are assumed to be stable, pseudo invariant sites. The associated radiometric calibration uncertainty is less than 5%, with band 4 being the worst case and bands 1–3 showing uncertainties of around 3%, more details can be found in the Radiometric Calibration of the Landsat MSS Sensor Series Document.

A summary of issues and impacts to Landsat data is available under the Landsat Missions Calibration Notices section on the USGS website.

Documents

• Landsat Calibration Update:A presentation reporting the Landsat calibration / validation results on the temporal uncertainty of radiometric calibration of all Landsat sensors.
• Pre-launch and Post-launch calibration procedures: Landsat-1 to 3 and Landsat-4
• Landsat MSS Calibration Parameter Files

Validation activities focus on checking the geometric and radiometric performance, in terms of both the ESA archive consistency and in comparison to the USGS archive.

Documents

• Landsat MSS State Vector Generation: Technical note describing the validation activities conducted to assess the geolocation accuracy and internal image geometry of the Landsat MSS products.
• MSS Product Geometric Validation: Report covering the geometric validation of MSS products processed in the frame of the reprocessing stress test using SLAP software v3.03 (see processor releases for more information).
• Validation of MSS Product Radiometric Calibration: A report focusing on the validation of radiometric calibration of MSS data observed over the CEOS endorsed calibration site, Libya 4, which is characterised as a pseudo invariant site.
• GLS 2000 Geometric Accuracy Validation: Paper assessing the accuracy of the GLS2000 dataset used as a raster reference for building a GCP database associated to each Landsat WRS scene.
• Landsat-1 to 5 MSS Image Assessment System Radiometric Algorithm Description Document: ATBD detailing the proposed algorithms with which the radiometric calibration processing of the ESA MSS data is based.
• Landsat-7 ETM+ Image Assessment System Geometric Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document: ATBD detailing the proposed algorithms with which the geometric calibration processing of the ESA MSS data is based.
• Landsat MSS Image Assessment System Geometric Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document: Available soon
• Landsat Level 1 GTC MSS Radiometric Stability: Technical Note detailing the product validation stage of the ESA Landsat Level 1 G MSS products.
• Landsat Level 1 GTC MSS Geometric Validation: Technical Note detailing the results of the geometric validation of the ESA Landsat MSS products
• MSS Quality Assessment: Presentation assessing the accuracy of the radiometric calibration and geolocation of Landsat MSS products.