Carried on board Landsat-4 and 5 satellites, the Thematic Mapper (TM) was a whiskbroom instrument designed and built by SBRC (Santa Barbara Research Centre) of Hughes Aircraft Company in Goleta, USA.

The instrument was regarded as a second generation imager for monitoring Earth's resources with considerably improved spectral and spatial resolutions over those of the Multi Spectral Scanner (MSS) which was used onboard the Landsat-1 to 5 satellites.

The TM instrument was a multispectral scanning radiometer operating in the visible and Infra-Red regions of the Electromagnetic Spectrum that was carried on board Landsat-4 and 5.

Learn more about the Thematic Mapper instrument:

• Thematic Mapper (TM) sensor on the eoPortal*
• Landsat Missions on USGS website*

*The information provided is sourced and updated by external entities. For further details, please consult our Terms and Conditions page.