FYI: landsat

[James Darrell McCauley]

[fyi only - not really grass specific but of general interest]

This is second hand info regarding the current status of landsat (from 
someone who attended a meeting at Goddard yesterday):

> Darrel Williams, NASA Project Scientist, gave an update on where Landsat
> stands. President Clinton signed a Presidential Decision Directive on May 5
> defining new directions for the program. The Department of Defense is now
> out of it. NASA will build and launch, and NOAA will operate Landsat 7. The
> Department of Interior's EROS Data Center at Souix Falls, South Dakota will
> distribute data at the cost of fulfilling user requests. Landsat 7 is
> scheduled for launch in December 1998 and will be like the ETM+. It will
> have direct downlinks (directly to a new Souix Falls ground station)
> instead of using TDRSS, and will use solid state storage on board instead
> of tape recorders. 

--Darrell