Landsat 3

Landsat 3 in the cleanroom.

Landsat 3 was launched on March 5, 1978, three years after Landsat 2. The third Landsat was still considered an experimental project and was operated by NASA until 1979.

Because of the Landsat program’s technical and scientific success, it was declared operational in 1979 and operational responsibility shifted from NASA (a research and development agency) to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the agency charged with operating the weather satellites.

Landsat 3 carried the same sensors as its predecessor: the Return Beam Vidicon (RBV) and the Multispectral Scanner System (MSS). The RBV instrument on-board Landsat 3 had an improved 30 m ground resolution and used two RCA cameras which both imaged in one broad spectral band (green to near-infrared; 0.505–0.750 µm) instead of three separate bands (green, red, infrared) like its predecessors.

The MSS continued to systematically collect images of Earth using four spectral bands. A fifth thermal band was also part of the Landsat 3 MSS, however, the channel failed shortly after launch.

In March of 1983, Landsat 3 was decommissioned.