Landsat 5

Landsat 5

Artist's rendering of Landsat 5.
Mission type	Earth imaging
Operator	NASA / NOAA
COSPAR ID	1984-021A
SATCAT no.	14780
Mission duration	29 years, 3 months and 4 days
Spacecraft properties
Bus	Multimission Modular Spacecraft
Manufacturer	Fairchild Industries
Launch mass	1,938 kilograms (4,273 lb)
Dry mass	1,407 kilograms (3,102 lb)
Start of mission
Launch date	1 March 1984 (1984-03)
Rocket	Delta 3920
Launch site	Vandenberg SLC-2W
End of mission
Disposal	Placed in graveyard orbit
Deactivated	5 June 2013 (2013-06-06)
Orbital parameters
Reference system	Geocentric
Regime	Sun-synchronous
Perigee altitude	694 kilometers (431 mi)
Apogee altitude	701 kilometers (436 mi)
Inclination	98.2 degrees
Period	98.72 minutes
Repeat interval	16 days
Epoch	1 April 1984[1]

Landsat 5 was a low Earth orbit satellite launched on March 1, 1984, to collect imagery of the surface of Earth. A continuation of the Landsat Program, Landsat 5 was jointly managed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Data from Landsat 5 was collected and distributed from the USGS's Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS).

After 29 years in space, Landsat 5 was officially decommissioned on June 5, 2013.^[2] Near the end of its mission, Landsat 5's use was hampered by equipment failures, and it was largely superseded by Landsat 7 and Landsat 8.^[2] Mission scientists anticipated the satellite will re-enter Earth's atmosphere and disintegrate around 2034.^[2]

Recognized by Guinness World Records as the longest-operating Earth-observing satellite mission in history, Landsat 5 orbited the planet more than 150,000 times while transmitting more than 2.5 million images of land surface conditions around the world, greatly outliving its original three-year design life.^[3]