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ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024

Md Obaidul Haque, Md Nahid Hasan, Ashish Shrestha, Rajagopalan Rengarajan, Mark Lubke, Daniel Steinwand · U.S. Geological Survey

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ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024

Open-File Report 2025–1036 Version 1.1, June 2026

U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey

ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024 By Md Obaidul Haque, Md Nahid Hasan, Ashish Shrestha, Rajagopalan Rengarajan, Mark Lubke, Daniel Steinwand, Paul Bresnahan, Jerad L. Shaw, Kathryn Ruslander, Esad Micijevic, Michael J. Choate, Cody Anderson, Jeff Clauson, Kurt Thome, Ed Kaita, Raviv Levy, Jeff Miller, Leibo Ding, and Cibele Teixeira Pinto

Open-File Report 2025–1036 Version 1.1, June 2026

U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey

U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia First release: 2025 Revised: June 2026 (ver. 1.1)

For more information on the USGS—the Federal source for science about the Earth, its natural and living resources, natural hazards, and the environment—visit https://www.usgs.gov. For an overview of USGS information products, including maps, imagery, and publications, visit https://store.usgs.gov/. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. Although this information product, for the most part, is in the public domain, it also may contain copyrighted materials as noted in the text. Permission to reproduce copyrighted items must be secured from the copyright owner. Suggested citation: Haque, M.O., Hasan, M.N., Shrestha, A., Rengarajan, R., Lubke, M., Steinwand, D., Bresnahan, P., Shaw, J.L., Ruslander, K., Micijevic, E., Choate, M.J., Anderson, C., Clauson, J., Thome, K., Kaita, E., Levy, R., Miller, J., Ding, L., and Teixeira Pinto, C., 2025, ECCOE Landsat quarterly Calibration and Validation report—Quarter 4, 2024 (ver. 1.1, June 2026): U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2025–1036, 56 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20251036. Associated data for this publication: U.S. Geological Survey, 2021, EarthExplorer: U.S. Geological Survey database, https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov. ISSN 2331-1258 (online)

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Contents Executive Summary��1 Introduction��1 Background��1 Purpose and Scope��2 Processing Level Definitions��2 Level 0��2 Level 1��2 Level 2��2 Landsat Collection Definitions��2 Landsat Collection 1��2 Landsat Collection 2��2 Landsat 9 Radiometric Performance Summary��3 Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager Signal-to-Noise Ratio��3 Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor Noise Performance��4 Landsat 9 Radiometric Stability��11 Landsat 9 Relative Gains��11 Landsat 9 to Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager Radiometric Cross-Comparison��20 Landsat 9 Geometric Performance Summary��21 Landsat 9 Band Registration Accuracy��21 Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager to Thermal Infrared Sensor Alignment��21 Landsat 9 Geometric Accuracy��24 Landsat 9 Geodetic Accuracy��25 Landsat 9 to Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager Geometric Coregistration��25 Landsat 8 Radiometric Performance Summary��27 Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager Signal-to-Noise Ratio��27 Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor Noise Performance��27 Landsat 8 Radiometric Stability��35 Landsat 8 Absolute Radiometric Calibration��35 Landsat 8 Relative Gains��42 Landsat 8 Geometric Performance Summary��47 Landsat 8 Band Registration Accuracy��47 Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager to Thermal Infrared Sensor Alignment��47 Landsat 8 Geometric Accuracy��49 Landsat 8 Geodetic Accuracy��52 Quarterly Level 2 Validation Results��53 Level 2 Surface Reflectance Pseudoinvariant Calibration Site Trending��53 Summary��54 References Cited��54

Figures 1.

Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager signal-to-noise ratio performance, December 2024��5 2. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager coastal/aerosol band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability��5 3. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager blue band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability��6 4. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager green band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability��6 5. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager red band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability��7 6. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager near infrared band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability��7 7. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 1 band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability��8 8. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 2 band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability��8 9. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager cirrus band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability��9 10. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager panchromatic band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability��9 11. Graph showing Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor band 10 lifetime noise performance��10 12. Graph showing Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor band 11 lifetime noise performance��10 13. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager coastal/aerosol band lifetime radiometric stability��11 14. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager blue band lifetime radiometric stability��12 15. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager green band lifetime radiometric stability��12 16. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager red band lifetime radiometric stability��13 17. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager near infrared band lifetime radiometric stability��13 18. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 1 band lifetime radiometric stability��14 19. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 2 band lifetime radiometric stability��14 20. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager panchromatic band lifetime radiometric stability��15 21. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager cirrus band lifetime radiometric stability��15 22. Graph showing Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor band 10 radiometric stability��16 23. Graph showing Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor band 11 radiometric stability��16 24. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager coastal/aerosol band per-detector change in relative gains between quarter 3 and quarter 4, 2024��17 25. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 1 band per-detector change in relative gains between quarter 3 and quarter 4, 2024��17 26. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 2 band per-detector change in relative gains between quarter 3 and quarter 4, 2024��18 27. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager panchromatic band per-detector change in relative gains between quarter 3 and quarter 4, 2024��18

28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 1 lifetime jumps in detector responsivity��19 Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 2 lifetime jumps in detector responsivity��19 Graph showing Landsat 9 to Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager Libya 4 pseudoinvariant calibration site top of atmosphere reflectance cross-comparison��20 Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager lifetime band registration accuracy by quarter��22 Graph showing Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor lifetime band registration accuracy by quarter��22 Graph showing Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor to Operational Land Imager lifetime band registration accuracy by quarter��23 Graph showing Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor to Operational Land Imager lifetime pitch alignment��23 Graph showing Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor to Operational Land Imager lifetime roll alignment��24 Graph showing Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor to Operational Land Imager lifetime yaw alignment��24 Graph showing Landsat 9 lifetime geometric accuracy by quarter��25 Graph showing Landsat 9 lifetime geodetic accuracy by quarter��26 Graph showing coregistration error between Landsat 9 and Landsat 8 Level 1 terrain-corrected products, quarter 4, 2024��27 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager signal-to-noise ratio performance, December 2024��29 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager coastal/aerosol band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability��29 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager blue band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability��30 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager green band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability��30 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager red band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability��31 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager near infrared band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability��31 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 1 band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability��32 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 2 band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability��32 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager cirrus band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability��33 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager panchromatic band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability��33 Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor band 10 lifetime noise performance��34 Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor band 11 lifetime noise performance��34 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager coastal/aerosol band lifetime radiometric stability��35 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager blue band lifetime radiometric stability��36 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager green band lifetime radiometric stability��36 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager red band lifetime radiometric stability��37

56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82.

Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager near infrared band lifetime radiometric stability��37 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 1 band lifetime radiometric stability��38 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 2 band lifetime radiometric stability��38 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager panchromatic band lifetime radiometric stability��39 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager cirrus band lifetime radiometric stability��39 Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor band 10 radiometric stability for the first approximately 700 days of the mission��40 Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor band 11 radiometric stability for the first approximately 700 days of the mission��40 Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor band 10 radiometric stability��41 Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor band 11 radiometric stability��41 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager lifetime gain trends and calibration gain updates��42 Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor gain degradation since the safehold event on November 1, 2020��43 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager coastal/aerosol band per-detector change in relative gains between quarter 3 and quarter 4, 2024��44 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 1 band per-detector change in relative gains between quarter 3 and quarter 4, 2024��44 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 2 band per-detector change in relative gains between quarter 3 and quarter 4, 2024��45 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager panchromatic band per-detector change in relative gains between quarter 3 and quarter 4, 2024��45 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 1 lifetime jumps in detector responsivity��46 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 2 lifetime jumps in detector responsivity��46 Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager lifetime band registration accuracy by quarter��48 Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor lifetime band registration accuracy by quarter��48 Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor to Operational Land Imager lifetime band registration accuracy by quarter��49 Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor to Operational Land Imager lifetime pitch alignment��50 Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor to Operational Land Imager lifetime roll alignment��50 Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor to Operational Land Imager lifetime yaw alignment��51 Graph showing Landsat 8 lifetime geometric accuracy by quarter��51 Graph showing Landsat 8 lifetime geodetic accuracy by quarter��52 Graph showing Libya 4 pseudoinvariant calibration site surface reflectance trending, Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager, Collection 2��53 Graph showing Libya 4 pseudoinvariant calibration site surface reflectance trending, Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager, Collection 2��54

vii

Tables 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager radiometric performance summary, quarter 4, 2024��3 Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor radiometric performance summary, quarter 4, 2024��4 Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager typical radiances for each spectral band��4 Landsat 9 geometric performance summary, quarter 4, 2024��21 Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager radiometric performance summary, quarter 4, 2024��28 Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor radiometric performance summary, quarter 4, 2024��28 Landsat 8 geometric performance summary, quarter 4, 2024��47

Conversion Factors International System of Units to U.S. customary units

Multiply

To obtain

Length nanometer (nm)

0.00000003937

inch (in.)

meter (m)

3.281

foot (ft)

meter (m)

1.094

yard (yd)

Temperature in Kelvin (K) may be converted to degrees Celsius (°C) as follows: °C = K – 273.15.

Supplemental Information Radiance is given in watts per square meter per steradian per micrometer (W/m2 sr µm). Within this report, quarter 1 is from January to March, quarter 2 is from April to June, quarter 3 is from July to September, and quarter 4 is from October to December. For example, quarter 4, 2024, was from October to December 2024. For consistent presentation of results for the Earth Resources Observation and Science Calibration and Validation Center of Excellence Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Reports, parts of this report were written following a previously developed template.

viii

Abbreviations Please refer to https://www.usgs.gov/landsat-missions/glossary-and-acronyms for lists of Landsat glossary terms and other Landsat abbreviations. ~

approximately

ASTER

Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer

coastal/aerosol

Cal/Val

Calibration and Validation

CE90

circular error with 90-percent confidence

CNES

Centre National D’Etudes Spatiales

CPF

calibration parameter file

DOQ

digital orthophoto quadrangle

ECCOE

EROS Cal/Val Center of Excellence

Earth observation

EROS

Earth Resources Observation and Science

ETM+

Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus

GCP

ground control point

Kelvin

L0Ra

Level 0 Reformatted Archive

L0Rp

Level 0 Reformatted Product

Level 1

L1TP

L1 Terrain Precision Correction

Ltypical

typical radiance

NEΔT

noise equivalent change in temperature

OLI

Operational Land Imager

PICS

pseudoinvariant calibration sites

SNR

signal-to-noise ratio

SSM

Scene Select Mechanism

SWIR

shortwave infrared

TIRS

Thermal Infrared Sensor

TOA

top of atmosphere

USGS

U.S. Geological Survey

ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024 By Md Obaidul Haque,1 Md Nahid Hasan,1 Ashish Shrestha,1 Rajagopalan Rengarajan,1 Mark Lubke,1 Daniel Steinwand,1 Paul Bresnahan,1 Jerad L. Shaw,1 Kathryn Ruslander,1 Esad Micijevic,2 Michael J. Choate,2 Cody Anderson,2 Jeff Clauson,2 Kurt Thome,3 Ed Kaita,4 Raviv Levy,4 Jeff Miller,4 Leibo Ding,4 and Cibele Teixeira Pinto4

Executive Summary The U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Calibration and Validation (Cal/Val) Center of Excellence focuses on improving the accuracy, precision, calibration, and product quality of remote-sensing data, leveraging years of multiscale optical system geometric and radiometric calibration and characterization experience. The Earth Resources Observation and Science Cal/Val Center of Excellence Landsat Cal/Val Team continually monitors the geometric and radiometric performance of active Landsat missions and makes calibration adjustments, as needed, to maintain data quality at the highest level. This report provides observed geometric and radiometric analysis results for Landsats 8 and 9 for quarter 4 (October– December) of 2024. All data used to compile the Cal/Val analysis results presented in this report are freely available from the U.S. Geological Survey EarthExplorer website: https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov.

Introduction The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Calibration and Validation (Cal/Val) Center of Excellence (ECCOE) focuses on improving the accuracy, precision, and quality of remote-sensing data, leveraging years of multiscale optical and thermal system geometric and radiometric calibration and characterization experience (USGS, 2021b).

1KBR, Inc.; Work done under contract to the U.S. Geological Survey. 2U.S. Geological Survey. 3National Aeronautics and Space Administration. 4Science Systems and Applications, Inc.; Work done under contract to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

This report provides observed geometric and radiometric analysis results for Landsats 8 and 9 for quarter 4 (October– December) of 2024. All data used to compile the Cal/Val analysis results presented in this report are freely available from the USGS EarthExplorer website: https://earthexplore r.usgs.gov (USGS, 2021a). Reports presenting data from previous quarters use similar language (for example, Haque and others, 2024, 2025).

Background The U.S. Department of the Interior is directed to ensure that U.S. land imaging needs are met in the future and to maintain U.S. leadership in civil land imaging and land science. Those directives come in the context of the Future of Land Imaging Interagency Working Group’s report titled “A Plan for a U.S. National Land Imaging Program” (Executive Office of the President of the United States, 2007) and two recent Earth observation (EO) publications (Executive Office of the President of the United States, 2014, 2016). These reports identified Landsat and other key USGS EO assets as critical components in the national EO structure, where several assets were ranked in the top 10 of more than 300 assets. Among these assets, Landsat ranked third or higher. Continuity with the past is key to meeting future land imaging science needs. The Landsat program, operated by the USGS, is the longest continuous record of satellite-based Earth imaging. Landsat data quality is viewed by the remote-sensing user community as a gold standard (National Geospatial Advisory Committee, 2020). To ensure the continued excellent quality of Landsat data, the USGS EROS Center has identified (1) maintaining a well-calibrated multidecade remote-sensing archive for science and (2) developing and understanding land remote-sensing requirements and land imaging solutions as key strategic pillars. Understanding the land imaging requirements of current and future users, along with an ability to assess the capabilities of current and future systems for meeting those requirements, is key to meeting future land imaging science needs. In the past, Cal/Val activities at the

2 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024 EROS Center that addressed the previously mentioned pillars were spread across multiple groups. The USGS EROS Center strategically brought the groups together and formed a single team in a unified project called the ECCOE to enable the USGS to more efficiently address national and global land remote-sensing needs.

Purpose and Scope The purpose of this report is to provide the latest geometric and radiometric performance results for all active Landsat missions. This report provides observed geometric and radiometric analysis results for Landsats 8 and 9 for quarter 4, 2024. All data used to compile the results presented in this report are available from the USGS EarthExplorer website: https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov (USGS, 2021a).

Processing Level Definitions This report frequently references Landsat processing levels. Descriptions of these processing levels are in the following subsections.

Level 0 The Level 0 Reformatted Archive (L0Ra) and Level 0 Reformatted Product (L0Rp) formats do not have sensor chip assembly or band alignment applied. L0Ra data are sensor data and spacecraft ancillary data that are reformatted for easier processing. Minor corrections to the ancillary data (such as frame number and time-code corrections) are applied, and ancillary raw data units are converted to engineering units. Image data are left in counts or digital numbers. L0Ra and L0Rp files are in the same format, but the content is different. L0Ra files contain an entire interval of imagery, whereas L0Rp files only contain a smaller part of the L0Ra data: a Worldwide Reference System-2 scene-based subset.

Level 1 The standard Level 1 (L1) image data are radiometrically and geometrically corrected. L1 Geometric Systematic Correction products are radiometrically calibrated with only systematic geometric corrections applied by using the spacecraft ephemeris and attitude data. L1 Systematic Terrain Correction products are radiometrically calibrated with systematic geometric corrections applied using the spacecraft ephemeris and attitude data and digital elevation model data to correct for relief displacement. L1 Terrain Precision Correction (L1TP) products are radiometrically calibrated, georegistered to ground control points (GCPs), and orthorectified using digital elevation model data to correct for relief displacement.

Level 2 The Level 2 science products are generated from L1 inputs that meet the less than 76-degree solar zenith angle constraint and include the required auxiliary data inputs to generate a scientifically viable product. Level 2 science products represent surface reflectance and surface temperature. Surface reflectance is the fraction of incoming solar radiation that is reflected from the Earth’s surface. Surface reflectance product generation accounts for the temporally, spatially, and spectrally varying scattering and absorbing effects of atmospheric gases, aerosols, and water vapor, which are necessary to reliably characterize the Earth’s land surface. The provisional surface temperature of the Earth in Kelvin (K) is generated from the Landsat Collection 2 L1 thermal infrared bands, top of atmosphere (TOA) reflectance, Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Global Emissivity Database data, ASTER Normalized Difference Vegetation Index data, and atmospheric profiles of geopotential height, specific humidity, and air temperature extracted from reanalysis data.

Landsat Collection Definitions This report frequently references Landsat collections. In 2016, the USGS reorganized the Landsat archive into a tiered-collection management structure. This structure ensures that all Landsat L1 products provide a consistent archive of known data quality while controlling continuous improvement of the archive and access to all data as they are acquired. The implementation of collections represents a substantial change in the management of the Landsat archive by ensuring consistent quality over time and across all instruments.

Landsat Collection 1 Landsat Collection 1 was released in 2016 and introduced collection tiers for L1 data products based on data quality and the level of processing. The tier definition purpose was to support easier identification of suitable scenes for time-series pixel-level analysis. In addition to tiered products, several changes were first introduced with the release of Collection 1 processing. Collection 1 data processing and distribution ended on December 30, 2022, 2 years after the release of Landsat Collection 2 in December 2020. Additional information about the Collection 1 products is available at https://www.usgs.gov/landsat-missions/landsat-collection-1.

Landsat Collection 2 Landsat Collection 2 was released in December 2020 and marked the second major reprocessing effort on the Landsat archive (USGS, 2020a, b). Collection 2 represented several data product improvements that harnessed recent advancements in data processing, algorithm development,

Landsat 9 Radiometric Performance Summary 3 and data access and distribution capabilities. Additional information about the Collection 2 products is available at https://www.usgs.gov/landsat-missions/landsat-collection-2.

Landsat 9 Radiometric Performance Summary The Landsat 9 on-orbit radiometric performance for this reporting quarter (quarter 4, 2024) meets all requirements as outlined in USGS (2022). The quarterly Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) radiometric performance summaries are provided in tables 1 and 2, respectively.

Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager Signal-to-Noise Ratio The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for each of the OLI spectral bands is characterized at a prescribed band-specific typical radiance (Ltypical) level, as described in table 3. The SNR of a detector at a given radiance level is defined as the mean of the measured pixel radiances acquired over a homogenous target divided by their standard deviation. A

curve is fit to the SNR at the measured radiance levels and is evaluated at the prescribed Ltypical level. Before launch, the SNR was characterized at multiple stages of the instrument build, culminating in the testing of the fully integrated instrument. The Landsat 9 OLI SNR is evaluated on orbit each month using onboard calibrator data and is slightly better than the Landsat 8 OLI SNR (between 3.47 and 8.66 percent band-dependent improvement at the Ltypical level). It is consistently two to three times better than requirements and about eight times better than the Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) SNR. The per-band OLI median SNR at the Ltypical level (yellow bars) for December 2024, which for all bands, easily exceeds the OLI SNR requirements (blue bars) by more than 50 percent, is shown in figure 1. Lifetime SNR stability at Ltypical for each OLI band is represented in figures 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10; monthly SNR values (for the detectors that have median SNRs for all bands) are denoted by the diamonds, and the uncertainties in the monthly SNR model are denoted by the error bars. The SNR for each band has remained stable over time (within the uncertainty of the models and much greater than the required levels). From Haque and others (2024), radiometric updates implemented during the Landsat 9 data archive reprocessing effort resulted in slight per-band improvement in the Landsat 9 OLI SNR (between 0.03 and 3.84 percent).

Table 1. Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager radiometric performance summary, quarter 4 (October–December), 2024. [The previous quarter is quarter 3 (July–September), 2024. OLI, Operational Land Imager; <, less than; SNR, signal-to-noise ratio; Ltypical, typical radiance; -, not applicable; Lhigh, high radiance; RMS, root mean square; stdev, standard deviation; ≤, less than or equal to; W/m2 sr µm, watt per square meter per steradian per micrometer; σ, sigma; spec, specification]

Requirement OLI ghosting OLI absolute radiance uncertainty OLI absolute reflectance uncertainty

Measured value from this quarter

Measured value from previous quarter1

Required value

Meets

Varies

Percent

1.9 2.3

Unit

OLI median SNR Ltypical

Meets

Varies

OLI median SNR Lhigh

Meets

Varies

OLI uniformity full field of view

0.30

<0.5

Percent

OLI uniformity banding RMS

0.10

Percent

OLI uniformity banding stdev

0.10

<0.25

Percent

≤0.5, 1

Percent

OLI uniformity streaking

0.2

OLI coherent noise

Meets

OLI saturation radiances

Meets

Less than coherent noise threshold curve Varies

W/m2 sr µm

OLI 16-day radiometric stability

0.05

Percent (2σ)

OLI 60-second radiometric stability

0.2

<0.5

Percent (2σ)

OLI inoperable detectors

<0.1

Percent

OLI out-of-spec detectors

<0.25

Percent

1From Haque and others (2025).

4 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024 Table 2. Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor radiometric performance summary, quarter 4 (October–December), 2024. [The previous quarter is quarter 3 (July–September), 2024. TIRS, Thermal Infrared Sensor; ~, approximately; <, less than; NE∆T, noise equivalent change in temperature; K, Kelvin; RMS, root mean square; stdev, standard deviation; -, not applicable; >, greater than; W/m2 sr µm, watt per square meter per steradian per micrometer; σ, sigma; spec, specification]

Requirement

Measured value from this quarter

Measured value from previous quarter1

Required value

Unit

TIRS absolute radiance uncertainty

Percent

TIRS NE∆T (at 300 K)

0.07

<0.4

TIRS uniformity full field of view

0.06

<0.5

Percent

TIRS uniformity banding RMS

0.12

<0.5

Percent

TIRS uniformity banding stdev

0.06

<0.5

Percent

<0.5

Percent

TIRS uniformity streaking TIRS coherent noise

0.15 Meets

Less than coherent noise threshold curve

TIRS saturation radiances

~25.0, ~23.0

>20.5, >17.8

W/m2 sr µm

TIRS 40-minute radiometric stability

<0.3

<0.7

Percent (1σ)

TIRS inoperable detectors

<0.1

Percent

TIRS out-of-spec detectors

<0.25

Percent

1From Haque and others (2025).

Table 3. Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager typical radiances for each spectral band (from Haque and others, 2024). [OLI, Operational Land Imager; nm, nanometer; Ltypical, typical radiance; W/m2 sr µm, watt per square meter per steradian per micrometer]

OLI band number

Spectral band

Center wavelength (nm)

Ltypical (W/m2 sr µm)

Coastal/aerosol

443

Blue

482

Green

561

Red

655

Near infrared

865

Shortwave infrared 1

1,609

4.0

Shortwave infrared 2

2,201

1.7

Panchromatic

590

Cirrus

1,373

6.0

Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor Noise Performance Noise can be defined as variation in detected signal over time when observing a stable source of radiation. For thermal sensors, noise is usually expressed in terms of a change in brightness temperature (that is, the noise equivalent change in temperature [NEΔT]). NEΔT is estimated as the standard deviation of detector data acquired over a uniform radiance source and then converted to temperature. Noise performance is completed on blackbody and deep space TIRS data (Barsi and others, 2022).

All Landsat 9 TIRS detectors have similar NEΔT. At 300 K, the band-average noise performance for both thermal bands is about six times better than the requirement (less than 0.4 K) and about three times better than the NEΔT of the Landsat 7 ETM+ thermal band at that same temperature. Lifetime averages of NEΔT at 300 K for TIRS band 10 are shown in figure 11, and the same averages for TIRS band 11 are shown in figure 12. In both figures, colored diamonds are used to indicate the observed NEΔT values as measured over time.

Landsat 9 Radiometric Performance Summary 5 450 400

Signal-to-noise ratio

350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 Coastal/aerosol

Blue

Green

Red

Near infrared

Shortwave infrared 1

Shortwave infrared 2

Panchromatic

Cirrus

Spectral band EXPLANATION Operational Land Imager (OLI) signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) requirement at typical radiance (Ltypical )

Standard deviation

Median SNR at Ltypical for December 2024 1.5 × OLI SNR requirement at Ltypical

Figure 1. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager signal-to-noise ratio performance, December 2024.

254

Coastal/aerosol

253

Signal-to-noise ratio

252 251 250 249 248 247 246 245 244 Sept. 2021 Dec. 2021 Mar. 2022 June 2022 Sept. 2022 Dec. 2022 Mar. 2023 June 2023 Sept. 2023 Dec. 2023 Mar. 2024 June 2024 Sept. 2024 Dec. 2024

Evaluation period EXPLANATION Monthly signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the detector with the band median SNR at typical radiance (Ltypical ) +2 × uncertainty of noise model Median −2 × uncertainty of noise model

Figure 2. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager coastal/aerosol band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability.

6 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024

408

Blue

407

Signal-to-noise ratio

406 405 404 403 402 401 400 399 398 Sept. 2021 Dec. 2021 Mar. 2022 June 2022 Sept. 2022 Dec. 2022 Mar. 2023 June 2023 Sept. 2023 Dec. 2023 Mar. 2024 June 2024 Sept. 2024 Dec. 2024

Figure 3. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager blue band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability.

339

Green

338

Signal-to-noise ratio

337 336 335 334 333 332 331 330 329 Sept. 2021 Dec. 2021 Mar. 2022 June 2022 Sept. 2022 Dec. 2022 Mar. 2023 June 2023 Sept. 2023 Dec. 2023 Mar. 2024 June 2024 Sept. 2024 Dec. 2024

Figure 4. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager green band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability.

Landsat 9 Radiometric Performance Summary 7

242

Red

241

Signal-to-noise ratio

240 239 238 237 236 235 234 233 232 Sept. 2021 Dec. 2021 Mar. 2022 June 2022 Sept. 2022 Dec. 2022 Mar. 2023 June 2023 Sept. 2023 Dec. 2023 Mar. 2024 June 2024 Sept. 2024 Dec. 2024

Figure 5. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager red band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability.

225

Near infrared

224

Signal-to-noise ratio

223 222 221 220 219 218 217 216 215 Sept. 2021 Dec. 2021 Mar. 2022 June 2022 Sept. 2022 Dec. 2022 Mar. 2023 June 2023 Sept. 2023 Dec. 2023 Mar. 2024 June 2024 Sept. 2024 Dec. 2024

Figure 6. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager near infrared band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability.

8 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024

290

Shortwave infrared 1

289

Signal-to-noise ratio

288 287 286 285 284 283 282 281 280 Sept. 2021 Dec. 2021 Mar. 2022 June 2022 Sept. 2022 Dec. 2022 Mar. 2023 June 2023 Sept. 2023 Dec. 2023 Mar. 2024 June 2024 Sept. 2024 Dec. 2024

Figure 7. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 1 band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability.

343

Shortwave infrared 2

342

Signal-to-noise ratio

341 340 339 338 337 336 335 334 333 Sept. 2021 Dec. 2021 Mar. 2022 June 2022 Sept. 2022 Dec. 2022 Mar. 2023 June 2023 Sept. 2023 Dec. 2023 Mar. 2024 June 2024 Sept. 2024 Dec. 2024

Figure 8. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 2 band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability.

Landsat 9 Radiometric Performance Summary 9

176

Cirrus

175

Signal-to-noise ratio

174 173 172 171 170 169 168 167 166 Sept. 2021 Dec. 2021 Mar. 2022 June 2022 Sept. 2022 Dec. 2022 Mar. 2023 June 2023 Sept. 2023 Dec. 2023 Mar. 2024 June 2024 Sept. 2024 Dec. 2024

Figure 9. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager cirrus band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability.

160

Panchromatic

159

Signal-to-noise ratio

158 157 156 155 154 153 152 151 150 Sept. 2021 Dec. 2021 Mar. 2022 June 2022 Sept. 2022 Dec. 2022 Mar. 2023 June 2023 Sept. 2023 Dec. 2023 Mar. 2024 June 2024 Sept. 2024 Dec. 2024

Figure 10. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager panchromatic band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability.

Noise equivalent change in temperature (at 300 Kelvin), in Kelvin

10 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024

0.06

Band 10

0.055

0.05

0.045

0.04 Sept. 2021

Mar. 2022

Oct. 2022

May 2023

Nov. 2023

June 2024

Dec. 2024

Date EXPLANATION Observed average

Noise equivalent change in temperature (at 300 Kelvin), in Kelvin

Figure 11. Graph showing Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor band 10 lifetime noise performance.

0.08

Band 11

0.075

0.07

0.065

0.06 Sept. 2021

Mar. 2022

Oct. 2022

May 2023

Nov. 2023

June 2024

Date EXPLANATION Observed average

Figure 12. Graph showing Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor band 11 lifetime noise performance.

Dec. 2024

Landsat 9 Radiometric Performance Summary 11 instrument power down and loss of thermal control. Once thermal control was recovered, the internal responsivity metric indicated that the response had changed by about 0.35 and 0.43 percent for bands 10 and 11, respectively (Haque and others, 2024). This change is corrected during data product generation and is transparent to the data users. After the reset event, TIRS responsivity has remained stable, as shown in figures 22 and 23.

Landsat 9 Radiometric Stability Radiometric stability of an instrument is fundamental to low uncertainty in the radiometric calibration of data products generated from its measurements. The radiometric response stability is characterized for all OLI and TIRS bands using the instruments’ responses to signals from the onboard calibration devices collected over time (USGS, 2021c). The bias and gain stability of an instrument are contributing factors to variability within a radiometrically calibrated product. The per-band Landsat 9 OLI radiometric stability over the lifetime of the instrument is shown in figures 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21. Within each figure, the x-axis represents years since launch (September 27, 2021), and the y-axis represents the response relative to the normalized first 3 months of image data acquisitions. Except for the coastal/ aerosol (CA) band, which was corrected for the first time in the quarter 3 (July–September), 2024, calibration parameter file (CPF), all onboard calibrators demonstrate stable responses over time at a level less than approximately (~) 0.3 percent with no significant trends. This response indicates no change in responsivity and indicates high radiometric stability of the instrument over its lifetime. Note that, because of the stable responses, the scale for these figures has been reduced when compared with the equivalent Landsat 8 figures to show additional detail. Early mission TIRS responsivity remained stable to within 0.05 percent in bands 10 and 11. On March 12, 2022, the TIRS Cryocooler Electronics reset suddenly, leading to

Response relative to normalized first three months of operations, in percent

1.015

Landsat 9 Relative Gains Relative gains account for the differences in responsivity among detectors within a spectral band. OLI relative gains are monitored using solar diffuser acquisitions, side slither acquisitions (which entail a 90-degree yaw maneuver over an invariant site to flatten the data), and scene statistics. Quarterly updates are completed using data from the solar diffuser acquisitions from the previous quarter (quarter 3, 2024). Typical per-detector changes in relative gains between the previous quarter (quarter 3, 2024) and this quarter (quarter 4, 2024) for several bands are shown in figures 24, 25, 26, and 27 by analyzing data from within each quarter. In each figure, the x-axis indicates the detector index, and the y-axis indicates the change in relative gain between quarter 3 and quarter 4 as a ratio. These changes in responsivity are accounted for in the L1 product by updating the following quarter’s CPF. The Landsat 9 OLI detectors that have indicated a sudden change in responsivity of 0.5 percent or greater in the shortwave infrared (SWIR) 1 and SWIR 2 bands since

Coastal/aerosol

1.01

1.005

0.995

0.99

0.985

0.5

1.5

2.5

Years since launch (September 27, 2021) EXPLANATION Stimulation (stim) lamp—Working

Solar panel—Working

Stim lamp—Pristine

Stim lamp—Backup

Solar panel—Pristine

Lunar

Figure 13. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager coastal/aerosol band lifetime radiometric stability.

12 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024

Response relative to normalized first three months of operations, in percent

1.015

Blue

1.01

1.005

0.995

0.99

0.985

0.5

1.5

2.5

Years since launch (September 27, 2021) EXPLANATION Stimulation (stim) lamp—Working

Solar panel—Working

Stim lamp—Pristine

Stim lamp—Backup

Solar panel—Pristine

Lunar

Figure 14. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager blue band lifetime radiometric stability.

Response relative to normalized first three months of operations, in percent

1.015

Green

1.01

1.005

0.995

0.99

0.985

0.5

1.5

2.5

Years since launch (September 27, 2021) EXPLANATION Stimulation (stim) lamp—Working

Solar panel—Working

Stim lamp—Pristine

Stim lamp—Backup

Solar panel—Pristine

Lunar

Figure 15. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager green band lifetime radiometric stability.

Landsat 9 Radiometric Performance Summary 13

Response relative to normalized first three months of operations, in percent

1.015

Red

1.01

1.005

0.995

0.99

0.985

0.5

1.5

2.5

Years since launch (September 27, 2021) EXPLANATION Stimulation (stim) lamp—Working

Solar panel—Working

Stim lamp—Pristine

Stim lamp—Backup

Solar panel—Pristine

Lunar

Figure 16. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager red band lifetime radiometric stability.

Response relative to normalized first three months of operations, in percent

1.015

Near infrared

1.01

1.005

0.995

0.99

0.985

0.5

1.5

2.5

Years since launch (September 27, 2021) EXPLANATION Stimulation (stim) lamp—Working

Solar panel—Working

Stim lamp—Pristine

Stim lamp—Backup

Solar panel—Pristine

Lunar

Figure 17. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager near infrared band lifetime radiometric stability.

14 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024

Response relative to normalized first three months of operations, in percent

1.015

Shortwave infrared 1

1.01

1.005

0.995

0.99

0.985

0.5

1.5

2.5

Years since launch (September 27, 2021) EXPLANATION Stimulation (stim) lamp—Working

Solar panel—Working

Stim lamp—Pristine

Stim lamp—Backup

Solar panel—Pristine

Lunar

Figure 18. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 1 band lifetime radiometric stability.

Response relative to normalized first three months of operations, in percent

1.015

Shortwave infrared 2

1.01

1.005

0.995

0.99

0.985 0

0.5

1.5

2.5

Years since launch (September 27, 2021) EXPLANATION Stimulation (stim) lamp—Working

Solar panel—Working

Stim lamp—Pristine

Stim lamp—Backup

Solar panel—Pristine

Lunar

Figure 19. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 2 band lifetime radiometric stability.

Landsat 9 Radiometric Performance Summary 15

Response relative to normalized first three months of operations, in percent

1.015

Panchromatic

1.01

1.005

0.995

0.99

0.985 0

0.5

1.5

2.5

Years since launch (September 27, 2021) EXPLANATION Stimulation (stim) lamp—Working

Solar panel—Working

Stim lamp—Pristine

Stim lamp—Backup

Solar panel—Pristine

Lunar

Figure 20. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager panchromatic band lifetime radiometric stability.

Response relative to normalized first three months of operations, in percent

1.015

Cirrus

1.01

1.005

0.995

0.99

0.985 0

0.5

1.5

2.5

Years since launch (September 27, 2021) EXPLANATION Stimulation (stim) lamp—Working

Solar panel—Working

Stim lamp—Pristine

Stim lamp—Backup

Solar panel—Pristine

Lunar

Figure 21. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager cirrus band lifetime radiometric stability.

16 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024

119

Band 10

118

Gain

117

116

115

114 0

0.5

1.5

2.5

Years since launch (September 27, 2021) EXPLANATION Gain in digital number divided by watt per square meter per steradian per micrometer (DN/[W/m2 sr µm])

Figure 22. Graph showing Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor band 10 radiometric stability.

112

Band 11

111

Gain

110

109

108

107 0

0.5

1.5

2.5

Years since launch (September 27, 2021) EXPLANATION Gain in digital number divided by watt per square meter per steradian per micrometer (DN/[W/m2 sr µm])

Figure 23. Graph showing Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor band 11 radiometric stability.

Landsat 9 Radiometric Performance Summary 17

1.0015

Relative gain ratio

1.001

1.0005

0.9995

0.999

Largest change: −0.136 percent 0

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

Detector index

Figure 24. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager coastal/aerosol band per-detector change in relative gains between quarter 3 (July–September) and quarter 4 (October–December), 2024.

1.008

Relative gain ratio

1.006

1.004

1.002

Largest change: 0.387 percent 0.998 0

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

Detector index

Figure 25. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 1 band per-detector change in relative gains between quarter 3 (July–September) and quarter 4 (October–December), 2024.

18 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024 1.006

Relative gain ratio

1.004

1.002

Largest change: 0.678 percent Largest change: 0.304 percent

0.998 0

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

Detector index

Figure 26. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 2 band per-detector change in relative gains between quarter 3 (July–September) and quarter 4 (October–December), 2024.

1.002

Relative gain ratio

1.0015

1.001

1.0005

Largest change: 0.233 percent 0.9995 0

2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

12,000

Detector index

Figure 27. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager panchromatic band per-detector change in relative gains between quarter 3 (July–September) and quarter 4 (October–December), 2024.

Landsat 9 Radiometric Performance Summary 19 launch are shown in figures 28 and 29. The x-axis indicates the date of the jump in responsivity, and the y-axis signifies the detector number. The observed responsivity jumps seem to be randomly scattered in time and location on the focal plane and do not seem to be associated with an instrument event or

7,410

failure. These jumps are only observed in the SWIR bands (SWIR 1, SWIR 2, and cirrus); the visible and near infrared band detectors have not indicated any jump behavior over the whole mission.

Shortwave infrared 1

6,916 6,422 5,928

Detector number

5,434 4,940 4,446 3,952 3,458 2,964 2,470 1,976 1,482 988 494 0 Oct. 31, 2021

May 19, 2022

Dec. 5, 2022

June 23, 2023

Date

Jan. 9, 2024

July 27, 2024

EXPLANATION Observed detector response jump

Figure 28. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 1 lifetime jumps in detector responsivity.

6,916

Shortwave infrared 2

6,422 5,928 5,434

Detector number

4,940 4,446 3,952 3,458 2,964 2,470 1,976 1,482 988 494 0 Oct. 31, 2021

May 19, 2022

Dec. 5, 2022

June 23, 2023

Date

Jan. 9, 2024

July 27, 2024

EXPLANATION Observed detector response jump

Figure 29. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 2 lifetime jumps in detector responsivity.

20 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024

Landsat 9 to Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager Radiometric Cross-Comparison The instruments onboard Landsat 9 are improved replicas of those currently collecting data onboard Landsat 8. Landsat 9 improvements include higher OLI radiometric resolution with a 14-bit quantization, increased from 12 bits for Landsat 8 (USGS, 2019b). Cross-comparison quantitative analysis between the Landsat 9 and Landsat 8 L1 TOA

0.8

reflectance acquisitions over a pseudoinvariant calibration site (PICS) is performed to determine interoperability between Landsat 9 OLI and Landsat 8 OLI. The TOA reflectance values observed over the Libya 4 PICS site (lat 28.55° N., long 23.39° E.) using the Centre National D’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) region of interest are shown in figure 30. The TOA reflectance measurements indicate good agreement between both sensors, and the similar trends by both sensors indicate consistent calibration.

Operational Land Imager, Collection 2

Top of atmosphere reflectance

0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0

0.5

1.5

2.5

Years since Landsat 9 launch (September 27, 2021) EXPLANATION Landsat 8 Coastal/aerosol Near infrared

Blue Shortwave infrared 1

Green Shortwave infrared 2

Red Panchromatic

Landsat 9 Coastal/aerosol Near infrared

Blue Shortwave infrared 1

Green Shortwave infrared 2

Red Panchromatic

Figure 30. Graph showing Landsat 9 to Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager Libya 4 pseudoinvariant calibration site top of atmosphere reflectance cross-comparison.

Landsat 9 Geometric Performance Summary 21

Landsat 9 Geometric Performance Summary The Landsat 9 on-orbit geometric performance for the reporting quarter (quarter 4, 2024) meets all requirements as outlined in USGS (2022). The quarterly results summary is provided in table 4.

Landsat 9 Band Registration Accuracy Internal band registration measures how accurately the various Landsat 9 spectral bands are geometrically aligned to each other. The assessment provides a numerical evaluation of the accuracy of the band registration within an image using automated cross-correlation techniques between the bands to be assessed (USGS, 2021c). Landsat 9 OLI band registration performance has been stable over time. Quarterly band-to-band maximum registration accuracy for each band combination, except for the cirrus band, is shown in figure 31. Within the figure, blue bars indicate maximum registration accuracy in the line direction, and green bars indicate maximum registration accuracy in the sample direction. Lifetime OLI band registration accuracy for all bands is 4.55 meters (not shown), and lifetime OLI band registration accuracy for all bands, excluding the cirrus band, is 3.18 meters, which is well within the instrument specification accuracy. The OLI band registration accuracy for all bands during quarter 4, 2024, is 4.10 meters, and the OLI band registration accuracy for all bands, excluding the cirrus band, during quarter 4, 2024, is 3.31 meters (table 4). TIRS band registration performance has been stable throughout the instrument’s lifetime. Behavior is well within specification, as shown in figure 32, and quarter 4, 2024, results are consistent with past performance. Within the figure,

blue bars indicate maximum registration accuracy in the line direction, and green bars indicate maximum registration accuracy in the sample direction. Lifetime TIRS band registration accuracy is 8.8 meters, and during quarter 4, 2024, the accuracy is 8.3 meters. Lifetime TIRS to OLI band registration accuracy by quarter is shown in figure 33. Behavior has been stable throughout the instrument’s lifetime and well within specification. Within the figure, blue bars indicate maximum registration accuracy in the line direction, and green bars indicate maximum registration accuracy in the sample direction. Lifetime TIRS to OLI registration accuracy (excluding the cirrus band) is 18.2 meters in the line direction and 18.0 meters in the sample direction. Quarter 4, 2024, TIRS to OLI registration accuracy (excluding the cirrus band) is 19.4 meters in the line direction and 19.2 meters in the sample direction.

Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager to Thermal Infrared Sensor Alignment Landsat 9 OLI to TIRS alignment knowledge is critical to ensure that the L1 product accuracy requirements can be met. The alignment between OLI and TIRS instruments is periodically measured using correlation-based methods to ensure that the band-to-band alignment requirements for all Landsat 9 bands can be met (USGS, 2021c). The alignment estimates are used to update the calibration parameters in the CPFs when the observed changes are determined to affect the performance requirements. TIRS to OLI pitch alignment measurements over instrument lifetimes are shown in figure 34. Although still in the early stages of the Landsat 9 mission, a seasonal pattern has been observed along with a slight downward trend. The predictive estimate for quarter 1 (January–March), 2025, was

Table 4. Landsat 9 geometric performance summary, quarter 4 (October–December), 2024. [The previous quarter is quarter 3 (July–September), 2024. OLI, Operational Land Imager; <, less than; LE90, linear error with 90-percent confidence; CE90, circular error with 90-percent confidence; L1T, Level 1 terrain-corrected product; >, greater than; TIRS, Thermal Infrared Sensor]

Requirement OLI band registration accuracy (all bands)

Measured value from this quarter

Measured value from previous quarter1

Required value

4.10

4.70

<4.5

Meter (LE90)

Unit

OLI band registration accuracy (no cirrus)

3.31

3.26

<4.5

Meter (LE90)

Absolute geodetic accuracy

14.1

14.9

<65

Meter (CE90)

Relative geodetic accuracy

7.7

7.6

<25

Meter (CE90)

Geometric (L1T) accuracy

4.4

3.7

<12

Meter (CE90)

OLI edge slope

0.030

0.029

>0.027

1 per meter

TIRS band registration accuracy

8.3

9.1

<18

Meter (LE90)

TIRS to OLI registration accuracy

19.4

17.6

<30

Meter (LE90)

1From Haque and others (2025).

22 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024 Operational Land Imager

3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1 0.5

2024Q4

2024Q3

2024Q2

2024Q1

2023Q4

2023Q3

2023Q2

2023Q1

2022Q4

2022Q3

2022Q2

2022Q1

2021Q4

All

Linear error with 90-percent confidence, in meters

Calendar year and quarter (Q) EXPLANATION Maximum registration accuracy Line direction

Sample direction

Figure 31. Graph showing Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager lifetime band (excluding cirrus) registration accuracy by quarter. Thermal Infrared Sensor

Calendar year and quarter (Q) EXPLANATION Maximum registration accuracy Line direction

Sample direction

Figure 32. Graph showing Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor lifetime band registration accuracy by quarter.

All

2024Q4

2024Q3

2024Q2

2024Q1

2023Q4

2023Q3

2023Q2

2023Q1

2022Q4

2022Q3

2022Q2

2022Q1

2021Q4

Linear error with 90-percent confidence, in meters

Landsat 9 Geometric Performance Summary 23

Thermal Infrared Sensor to Operational Land Imager

All

2024Q4

2024Q3

2024Q2

2024Q1

2023Q4

2023Q3

2023Q2

2023Q1

2022Q4

2022Q3

2022Q2

2022Q1

2021Q4

Calendar year and quarter (Q) EXPLANATION Maximum registration accuracy Line direction

Sample direction

Figure 33. Graph showing Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor to Operational Land Imager lifetime band (excluding cirrus) registration accuracy by quarter.

−0.00034

Pitch

Pitch angle, in radians

−0.00035 −0.00036 −0.00037 −0.00038 −0.00039 −0.0004 −0.00041 Oct. 15, 2021

Oct. 15, 2022

Oct. 15, 2023

Oct. 15, 2024

Date EXPLANATION Pitch estimated from a quarterly average

Pitch in the calibration parameter file

Pitch estimated from calibration scene

Figure 34. Graph showing Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor to Operational Land Imager lifetime pitch alignment.

determined based on these observed trends. The lifetime TIRS to OLI roll alignment is shown in figure 35, and the lifetime TIRS to OLI yaw alignment is shown in figure 36. Each light blue symbol on these figures represents one calibration scene,

the dark blue solid lines indicate quarterly alignment averages, and the orange dashed lines indicate applied Collection 2 CPF correction values.

24 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024

−0.002355

Roll

−0.00236

Roll angle, in radians

−0.002365 −0.00237 −0.002375 −0.00238 −0.002385 −0.00239 −0.002395 −0.0024 Oct. 15, 2021

Oct. 15, 2022

Oct. 15, 2023

Oct. 15, 2024

Date EXPLANATION Roll estimated from a quarterly average

Roll in the calibration parameter file

Roll estimated from calibration scene

Figure 35. Graph showing Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor to Operational Land Imager lifetime roll alignment.

0.0014

Yaw

Yaw angle, in radians

0.00135

0.0013

0.00125

0.0012

0.00115

0.0011 Oct. 15, 2021

Oct. 15, 2022

Oct. 15, 2023

Oct. 15, 2024

Date EXPLANATION Yaw estimated from a quarterly average

Yaw in the calibration parameter file

Yaw estimated from calibration scene

Figure 36. Graph showing Landsat 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor to Operational Land Imager lifetime yaw alignment.

Landsat 9 Geometric Accuracy The Landsat 9 geometric assessment evaluates the absolute positional accuracy of the image products with respect to a ground (geometric) reference. The geometric accuracy assessment estimates the geometric error between the L1TP products and GCPs using automated cross-correlation techniques (USGS, 2021c).

Based on analysis results, relative accuracy of the Collection 2 GCPs is comparable to the digital orthophoto quadrangle (DOQ) supersites, which are sites created from a mosaic of highly accurate high-resolution terrain-corrected aerial data. Comparatively, relative accuracy of the Collection 2 GCPs is substantially better than the internal consistency of the Collection 1 GCPs. Overall, results based on cloud-contaminated scenes are the primary contributor

Landsat 9 Geometric Performance Summary 25 to substandard geometric accuracy from L1TP products. Lifetime quarterly geometric accuracy at a circular error with 90-percent confidence (CE90) is shown in figure 37. Blue bars indicate the geometric accuracy estimated over DOQ supersite paths/rows (calibration sites) with cloud-free scenes, yellow bars indicate geometric accuracy estimated over supersite paths/rows with no cloud constraints using Collection 2 GCPs, and green bars indicate geometric accuracy estimated over all L1TP scenes processed in Collection 2 using Collection 2 GCPs with no cloud constraints. All results for this quarter are within the accuracy specification. Lifetime and quarter 4, 2024, geometric accuracies for L1TP products are 3.7 and 4.4 meters when compared against cloud-free scenes over supersite paths/rows (using DOQ GCPs), 6.0 and 6.4 meters when compared against all L1TP scenes over supersite paths/rows only and 11.1 and 11.1 meters when analyzing all the L1TP scenes processed in Collection 2, respectively. Note that seasonal effect is a factor in accuracy results.

the discrepancy between the known ground location and the position predicted by the OLI geometric model (USGS, 2021c). Based on analysis results, absolute accuracy of the Collection 2 GCPs is comparable to the DOQ supersites and is substantially better compared to the Collection 1 GCPs (Rengarajan and others, 2020). Lifetime quarterly geodetic accuracy (CE90) is shown in figure 38. Blue bars indicate the accuracy estimated using DOQ supersite paths/ rows (calibration sites), and green bars indicate accuracy estimated from all L1TP scenes processed in Collection 2 using Collection 2 GCPs. As with the geometric accuracy, a wide variety of scene types (cloud contaminated, islands, desert, snow covered, ice sheets, and so on) are the primary contributors to the substandard geodetic accuracy for Collection 2 GCP-based results. Lifetime geodetic accuracies for systematic products are 14.1 meters when compared using DOQ GCPs over supersites and 25.8 meters when compared using Collection 2 GCPs over all the scenes processed in Collection 2, respectively.

Landsat 9 Geodetic Accuracy

Landsat 9 to Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager Geometric Coregistration

The Landsat 9 and Landsat 8 OLI sensors provide identical spectral and spatial characteristics. To measure the geometric coregistration, image-to-image comparisons between Landsat 9 and Landsat 8 L1TP products were

Geometric accuracy

14 12 10 8 6 4 2

Calendar year and quarter (Q) EXPLANATION Calibration site—Digital orthophoto quadrangle ground control points with cloud-free data Calibration site—Collection 2 ground control points with no cloud constraints All scenes—Collection 2 ground control points with no cloud constraints

Figure 37. Graph showing Landsat 9 lifetime geometric accuracy by quarter.

All

2024Q4

2024Q3

2024Q2

2024Q1

2023Q4

2023Q3

2023Q2

2023Q1

2022Q4

2022Q3

2022Q2

2022Q1

0 2021Q4

Circular error with 90-percent confidence, in meters

The purpose of the geodetic accuracy assessment is to ensure that the Landsat 9 L0Rp data can be successfully processed into L1 systematic products that meet the system requirement of 65 meters at a CE90 horizontal accuracy. To measure the accuracy, calibration scenes are automatically correlated with data from the panchromatic band to measure

26 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024 Geodetic accuracy Circular error with 90-percent confidence, in meters

40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5

All

2024Q4

2024Q3

2024Q2

2024Q1

2023Q4

2023Q3

2023Q2

2023Q1

2022Q4

2022Q3

2022Q2

2022Q1

2021Q4

Calendar year and quarter (Q) EXPLANATION Calibration site—Digital orthophoto quadrangle ground control points All scenes—Collection 2 ground control points

Figure 38. Graph showing Landsat 9 lifetime geodetic accuracy by quarter.

assessed, and the results are shown in figure 39. The image-to-image registration accuracy characterization is performed between panchromatic band image products using a correlation-based mensuration process (Choate and others, 2022). While measuring the image-to-image registration between the two sensors, scene pairs were selected in such a

way that the temporal distance between the two scenes was no more than 32 days. The observed coregistration error between Landsat 9 and Landsat 8 L1TP products is indicated with the magenta dots. Based on analysis results, the Landsat 9 and Landsat 8 L1TP products are coregistered to within 3 meters of the CE90 (Rengarajan and others, 2024).

Landsat 8 Radiometric Performance Summary 27

Registration circular error, with 90-percent confidence, in meters

0 Oct. 1, 2024

Oct. 11, 2024

Oct. 21, 2024

Oct. 31, 2024

Nov. 10, 2024

Nov. 20, 2024

Nov. 30, 2024

Dec. 10, 2024

Dec. 20, 2024

Dec. 30, 2024

Date

EXPLANATION Landsat 9 versus Landsat 8

Figure 39. Graph showing coregistration error between Landsat 9 and Landsat 8 Level 1 terrain-corrected products, quarter 4 (October–December), 2024.

Landsat 8 Radiometric Performance Summary The Landsat 8 on-orbit radiometric performance for this reporting quarter (quarter 4, 2024) meets all requirements outlined in USGS (2019a). The quarterly OLI and TIRS radiometric performance summaries are provided in tables 5 and 6, respectively.

Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager Signal-to-Noise Ratio The SNR for each of the OLI spectral bands is characterized at a prescribed band-specific Ltypical level, as described in table 3. The SNR of a detector at a given radiance level is defined as the mean of the measured pixel radiances acquired over a homogenous target divided by their standard deviation. A curve is fit to the SNR at the measured radiance levels and is evaluated at the prescribed Ltypical level. The SNR is characterized at multiple stages of the instrument build, culminating in the testing of the fully integrated instrument. The Landsat 8 OLI SNR is evaluated on orbit each month. It remains consistently two to three times better than requirements and about eight times better than the Landsat 7 ETM+ SNR. The Collection 2 SNR slightly increased because of improvement in the bias calculation, further exceeding requirement thresholds. The per-band OLI median SNR at the Ltypical level (yellow bars) for December 2024, which easily exceeds the OLI SNR requirements (blue bars) by more than 50 percent for all bands, is shown in figure 40. Lifetime

SNR stability at Ltypical for each OLI band is represented in figures 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, and 49; monthly SNR values (for the detectors that have median SNRs for all bands) are denoted by the diamonds, and the uncertainties in the monthly SNR model are denoted by the error bars. The SNR for each band has remained stable over time (within the uncertainty of the models and much greater than the required levels).

Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor Noise Performance Noise can be defined as variation in the detected signal over time when observing a stable source of radiation. For thermal sensors, noise is usually expressed in terms of a change in brightness temperature (that is, NEΔT). NEΔT is estimated as the standard deviation of detector data acquired over a uniform radiance source and then converted to temperature. Noise performance is completed on blackbody and deep space TIRS data (Montanaro and others, 2014). All Landsat 8 TIRS detectors have similar NEΔT. At 300 K, the band-average noise performance for both thermal bands is about eight times better than the requirement (less than 0.4 K) and about four times better than the NEΔT of the Landsat 7 ETM+ thermal band at that same temperature. Lifetime averages of NEΔT at 300 K for TIRS band 10 are shown in figure 50, and the same averages for TIRS band 11 are shown in figure 51. In both figures, colored diamonds are used to indicate the observed NEΔT values as measured over time.

28 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024 Table 5. Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager radiometric performance summary, quarter 4 (October–December), 2024. [The previous quarter is quarter 3 (July–September), 2024. OLI, Operational Land Imager; <, less than; SNR, signal-to-noise ratio; Ltypical, typical radiance; -, not applicable; Lhigh, high radiance; RMS, root mean square; stdev, standard deviation; ≤, less than or equal to; W/m2 sr µm, watt per square meter per steradian per micrometer; σ, sigma; spec, specification]

Requirement

Measured value from this quarter

Measured value from previous quarter1

Required value

Meets

Varies

Percent

OLI ghosting

Unit

OLI absolute radiance uncertainty

Percent

OLI absolute reflectance uncertainty

Percent

OLI median SNR Ltypical

Meets

Varies

OLI median SNR Lhigh

Meets

Varies

OLI uniformity full field of view

0.35

<0.5

Percent

OLI uniformity banding RMS

0.80

Percent

OLI uniformity banding stdev

0.15

<0.25

Percent

OLI uniformity streaking

0.5

≤0.5, 1

Percent

OLI coherent noise

Meets

OLI saturation radiances

Meets

Less than coherent noise threshold curve Varies

W/m2 sr µm

OLI 16-day radiometric stability

0.12

Percent (2σ)

OLI 60-second radiometric stability

0.1

<0.5

Percent (2σ)

OLI inoperable detectors

<0.1

Percent

OLI out-of-spec detectors

0.06

<0.25

Percent

1From Haque and others (2025).

Table 6. Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor radiometric performance summary, quarter 4 (October–December), 2024. [The previous quarter is quarter 3 (July–September), 2024. TIRS, Thermal Infrared Sensor; ~, approximately; <, less than; NE∆T, noise equivalent change in temperature; K, Kelvin; TBD, to be determined; RMS, root mean square; stdev, standard deviation; -, not applicable; >, greater than; W/m2 sr µm, watt per square meter per steradian per micrometer; σ, sigma; spec, specification]

Requirement

Measured value from this quarter

Measured value from previous quarter1

Required value

Unit

TIRS absolute radiance uncertainty

Percent

TIRS NE∆T (at 300 K)

0.05

<0.4

TIRS uniformity full field of view

TBD

<0.5

Percent

TIRS uniformity banding RMS

TBD

<0.5

Percent

TIRS uniformity banding stdev

TBD

<0.5

Percent

<0.5

Percent

TIRS uniformity streaking TIRS coherent noise

<0.5 Meets

Less than coherent noise threshold curve

TIRS saturation radiances

28.4, 19.2

>20.5, >17.8

W/m2 sr µm

TIRS 40-minute radiometric stability

0.1

<0.7

Percent (1σ)

TIRS inoperable detectors

<0.1

Percent

TIRS out-of-spec detectors

0.21

<0.25

Percent

1From Haque and others (2025).

Landsat 8 Radiometric Performance Summary 29 450 400

Signal-to-noise ratio

350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 Coastal/aerosol

Blue

Green

Red

Near infrared

Shortwave infrared 1

Shortwave infrared 2

Panchromatic

Cirrus

Spectral band EXPLANATION Operational Land Imager (OLI) signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) requirement at typical radiance (Ltypical )

Standard deviation

Median SNR at Ltypical for December 2024 1.5 × OLI SNR requirement at Ltypical

Figure 40. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager signal-to-noise ratio performance, December 2024.

240

Coastal/aerosol

Signal-to-noise ratio

239

238

237

236

235 Dec. 2012

Dec. 2013

Dec. 2014

Dec. 2015

Dec. 2016

Dec. 2017

Dec. 2018

Dec. 2019

Dec. 2020

Dec. 2021

Dec. 2022

Dec. 2023

Dec. 2024

Figure 41. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager coastal/aerosol band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability.

30 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024

373

Blue

Signal-to-noise ratio

372

371

370

369

368 Dec. 2012

Dec. 2013

Dec. 2014

Dec. 2015

Dec. 2016

Dec. 2017

Dec. 2018

Dec. 2019

Dec. 2020

Dec. 2021

Dec. 2022

Dec. 2023

Dec. 2024

Figure 42. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager blue band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability.

309

Green

Signal-to-noise ratio

308

307

306

305 Dec. 2012

Dec. 2013

Dec. 2014

Dec. 2015

Dec. 2016

Dec. 2017

Dec. 2018

Dec. 2019

Dec. 2020

Dec. 2021

Dec. 2022

Dec. 2023

Figure 43. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager green band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability.

Dec. 2024

Landsat 8 Radiometric Performance Summary 31

231

Red

Signal-to-noise ratio

230

229

228

227 Dec. 2012

Dec. 2013

Dec. 2014

Dec. 2015

Dec. 2016

Dec. 2017

Dec. 2018

Dec. 2019

Dec. 2020

Dec. 2021

Dec. 2022

Dec. 2023

Dec. 2024

Figure 44. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager red band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability.

205

Near infrared

Signal-to-noise ratio

204

203

202

201 Dec. 2012

Dec. 2013

Dec. 2014

Dec. 2015

Dec. 2016

Dec. 2017

Dec. 2018

Dec. 2019

Dec. 2020

Dec. 2021

Dec. 2022

Dec. 2023

Dec. 2024

Figure 45. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager near infrared band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability.

32 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024

271

Shortwave infrared 1

Signal-to-noise ratio

270

269

268

267

266

265 Dec. 2012

Dec. 2013

Dec. 2014

Dec. 2015

Dec. 2016

Dec. 2017

Dec. 2018

Dec. 2019

Dec. 2020

Dec. 2021

Dec. 2022

Dec. 2023

Dec. 2024

Figure 46. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 1 band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability.

331

Shortwave infrared 2

Signal-to-noise ratio

330 329 328 327 326 325 324 Dec. 2012

Dec. 2013

Dec. 2014

Dec. 2015

Dec. 2016

Dec. 2017

Dec. 2018

Dec. 2019

Dec. 2020

Dec. 2021

Dec. 2022

Dec. 2023

Dec. 2024

Figure 47. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 2 band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability.

Landsat 8 Radiometric Performance Summary 33

163

Cirrus

Signal-to-noise ratio

162

161

160

159

158

157 Dec. 2012

Dec. 2013

Dec. 2014

Dec. 2015

Dec. 2016

Dec. 2017

Dec. 2018

Dec. 2019

Dec. 2020

Dec. 2021

Dec. 2022

Dec. 2023

Dec. 2024

Figure 48. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager cirrus band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability.

151

Panchromatic

Signal-to-noise ratio

150

149

148

147

146 Dec. 2012

Dec. 2013

Dec. 2014

Dec. 2015

Dec. 2016

Dec. 2017

Dec. 2018

Dec. 2019

Dec. 2020

Dec. 2021

Dec. 2022

Dec. 2023

Dec. 2024

Figure 49. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager panchromatic band lifetime signal-to-noise ratio stability.

Noise equivalent change in temperature (at 300 Kelvin), in Kelvin

34 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024

0.06

Band 10

0.055

0.05

0.045

0.04 Jan. 2013

June 2014

Oct. 2015

Mar. 2017

July 2018

Dec. 2019

Apr. 2021

Aug. 2022

Jan. 2024

Date EXPLANATION Observed average

Noise equivalent change in temperature (at 300 Kelvin), in Kelvin

Figure 50. Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor band 10 lifetime noise performance.

0.06

Band 11

0.055

0.05

0.045

0.04 Jan. 2013

June 2014

Oct. 2015

Mar. 2017

July 2018

Dec. 2019

Apr. 2021

Aug. 2022

Date EXPLANATION Observed average

Figure 51. Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor band 11 lifetime noise performance.

Jan. 2024

Landsat 8 Radiometric Performance Summary 35

Landsat 8 Radiometric Stability Radiometric stability of an instrument is fundamental to low uncertainty in the radiometric calibration of data products generated from its measurements. The radiometric response stability is characterized for all OLI and TIRS bands using the instruments’ responses to signals from the onboard calibration devices collected over time (USGS, 2021c). The bias and gain stability of an instrument are contributing factors to variability within a radiometrically calibrated product. The Landsat 8 per-band OLI radiometric stability over the lifetime of the instrument is shown in figures 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, and 60. Within each figure, the x-axis represents years since launch (February 11, 2013), and the y-axis represents the response relative to mission day 75. The solid brown line (figs. 52 and 53) represents the gain model used over time, which is derived from the OLI response to the stimulation lamps, solar panels, and lunar collects; it is only shown for the bands with responsivity (gain) determined to be slowly changing over time (CA and blue bands). For the remaining bands, response changes were minuscule until the safehold events in November 2020. More information about the Landsat 8 safehold events is available at https://www .usgs.gov/landsat-missions/november-19-2020-landsat-8-data- availability-update-recent-safehold-events. These observations indicate high radiometric stability of the instrument over its lifetime. Data derived from bands that have changed responsivity are corrected during product generation, so final products are not affected.

From Micijevic and others (2021), the stability of the Landsat 8 TIRS bands 10 and 11 side A electronics that were used for the first ~700 days of the mission is shown in figures 61 and 62. During that period, TIRS gains changed by about 0.2 and 0.1 percent per year for bands 10 and 11, respectively. These trends reduced on the side B electronics to about 0.05 and 0.01 percent until the two safehold events in November 2020, as shown in figures 63 and 64, respectively. After the safehold events, TIRS responsivity has gradually decreased ~3.6 and ~7.0 percent for bands 10 and 11, respectively. Note that the response degradation is modeled and corrected to within 0.5-percent uncertainty in the L1 products. Since January 2021, Landsat 8 TIRS onboard calibrator acquisitions have been collected weekly (instead of once every ~2 weeks) to better monitor the degradation in response observed after the safehold events. Weekly calibration acquisitions are planned into the future if the response degradation trend continues and if geometric and radiometric accuracies are not negatively affected by the increased acquisition frequency.

Landsat 8 Absolute Radiometric Calibration Absolute radiometric calibration is established on the ground before launch and transferred to orbit using the solar diffuser for OLI and the blackbody for TIRS. Onboard calibrators and PICS (Committee on Earth Observation Satellites, 2021) are used to monitor changes in absolute

Response relative to mission day 75, in percent

Coastal/aerosol 1.005

0.995

0.985

0.975

0.965

0.955 0

Years since launch (February 11, 2013) EXPLANATION Gain model

Stimulation (stim) lamp—Working

Solar panel—Working

Stim lamp—Pristine

Stim lamp—Backup

Solar panel—Pristine

Lunar

Figure 52. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager coastal/aerosol band lifetime radiometric stability.

36 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024

Response relative to mission day 75, in percent

1.01

Blue

1.005 1 0.995 0.99 0.985 0.98 0.975 0.97 0.965 0.96

Years since launch (February 11, 2013) EXPLANATION Gain model

Stimulation (stim) lamp—Working

Solar panel—Working

Stim lamp—Pristine

Stim lamp—Backup

Solar panel—Pristine

Lunar

Figure 53. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager blue band lifetime radiometric stability.

Response relative to mission day 75, in percent

1.01

Green

1.005 1 0.995 0.99 0.985 0.98 0.975 0.97 0.965 0.96 0

Years since launch (February 11, 2013) EXPLANATION Stimulation (stim) lamp—Working

Solar panel—Working

Stim lamp—Pristine

Stim lamp—Backup

Solar panel—Pristine

Lunar

Figure 54. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager green band lifetime radiometric stability.

Landsat 8 Radiometric Performance Summary 37

Response relative to mission day 75, in percent

1.01

Red

1.005 1 0.995 0.99 0.985 0.98 0.975 0.97 0.965 0.96 0

Years since launch (February 11, 2013) EXPLANATION Stimulation (stim) lamp—Working

Solar panel—Working

Stim lamp—Pristine

Stim lamp—Backup

Solar panel—Pristine

Lunar

Figure 55. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager red band lifetime radiometric stability.

Response relative to mission day 75, in percent

1.01

Near infrared

1.005 1 0.995 0.99 0.985 0.98 0.975 0.97 0.965 0.96 0

Years since launch (February 11, 2013) EXPLANATION Stimulation (stim) lamp—Working

Solar panel—Working

Stim lamp—Pristine

Stim lamp—Backup

Solar panel—Pristine

Lunar

Figure 56. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager near infrared band lifetime radiometric stability.

38 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024

Response relative to mission day 75, in percent

1.01

Shortwave infrared 1

1.005 1 0.995 0.99 0.985 0.98 0.975 0.97 0.965 0.96

Years since launch (February 11, 2013) EXPLANATION Stimulation (stim) lamp—Working

Solar panel—Working

Stim lamp—Pristine

Stim lamp—Backup

Solar panel—Pristine

Lunar

Figure 57. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 1 band lifetime radiometric stability.

Response relative to mission day 75, in percent

1.01

Shortwave infrared 2

1.005 1 0.995 0.99 0.985 0.98 0.975 0.97 0.965 0.96

Years since launch (February 11, 2013) EXPLANATION Stimulation (stim) lamp—Working

Solar panel—Working

Stim lamp—Pristine

Stim lamp—Backup

Solar panel—Pristine

Lunar

Figure 58. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 2 band lifetime radiometric stability.

Landsat 8 Radiometric Performance Summary 39

Response relative to mission day 75, in percent

1.01

Panchromatic

1.005 1 0.995 0.99 0.985 0.98 0.975 0.97 0.965 0.96 0

Years since launch (February 11, 2013) EXPLANATION Stimulation (stim) lamp—Working

Solar panel—Working

Stim lamp—Pristine

Stim lamp—Backup

Solar panel—Pristine

Lunar

Figure 59. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager panchromatic band lifetime radiometric stability.

Response relative to mission day 75, in percent

1.01

Cirrus

1.005 1 0.995 0.99 0.985 0.98 0.975 0.97 0.965 0.96 0

Years since launch (February 11, 2013) EXPLANATION Stimulation (stim) lamp—Working

Solar panel—Working

Stim lamp—Pristine

Stim lamp—Backup

Solar panel—Pristine

Lunar

Figure 60. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager cirrus band lifetime radiometric stability.

40 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024

353.5

Band 10, side A

353

Gain

352.5

352

351.5

351

350.5 0

Years since launch (February 11, 2013)

EXPLANATION Gain in digital number divided by watt per square meter per steradian per micrometer (DN/[W/m2 sr µm])

Figure 61. Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor band 10 radiometric stability (side A) for the first approximately 700 days of the mission (from Micijevic and others, 2021).

495.5

Band 11, side A

495

Gain

494.5

494

493.5

493

492.5 0

Years since launch (February 11, 2013)

EXPLANATION Gain in digital number divided by watt per square meter per steradian per micrometer (DN/[W/m2 sr µm])

Figure 62. Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor band 11 radiometric stability (side A) for the first approximately 700 days of the mission (from Micijevic and others, 2021).

Landsat 8 Radiometric Performance Summary 41 Band 10, side B 328

Gain

323

318

313

308 2

Years since launch (February 11, 2013)

EXPLANATION Gain in digital number divided by watt per square meter per steradian per micrometer (DN/[W/m2 sr µm])

Figure 63. Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor band 10 radiometric stability (side B).

418

Band 11, side B

413

Gain

408

403

398

393

388 2

Years since launch (February 11, 2013)

EXPLANATION Gain in digital number divided by watt per square meter per steradian per micrometer (DN/[W/m2 sr µm])

Figure 64. Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor band 11 radiometric stability (side B).

calibration, and vicarious methods are used to check absolute calibration over time (USGS, 2021c). Updates can be made to the calibration parameters used in processing the data to L1 when a substantial change is detected in the calibrator trends. The lifetime effect of Landsat 8 OLI gain updates is shown in figure 65. A slow decay in CA and blue band calibration response was observed (figs. 52 and 53,

respectively). The absolute radiometric calibration for the CA band has been actively modeled since April 2015, and an update to the calibration parameters was implemented for the blue band in April 2017. In April 2018, it was determined that the response to the working stimulation lamp was diverging from the other calibrators, and the working stimulation lamp was removed from the model that generates the gain

42 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024

Gain change, in percent

updates. Similarly, in October 2019, the working diffuser was removed from the gain model because of diverging trends. In both cases, the new estimates of the radiometric gain were only applied to newly acquired data. When the archive was reprocessed for Collection 2, the updated gains were applied to all data, which changed the calibrated response in the CA and blue bands by as much as 0.15 percent compared to the Collection 1 products (Micijevic and others, 2021). The safehold events in November 2020 caused small changes to the Landsat 8 OLI response, as reflected in figure 26 by the small, systematic error adjustments that were made to the gain models. In July 2021, the CPF was updated to account for as much as a 0.12-percent step change in OLI responsivity caused by the November 2020 safehold events (Micijevic and others, 2022). The effect of change in average gain for Landsat 8 TIRS bands 10 and 11 since the safehold event on November 1, 2020, is shown in figure 66. The orange line is a modeled gain trend for band 10 based on the Internal Calibrator data (fig. 63), and the blue line is the gain trend sampled into calibration parameters that ensure there is no more than a 0.5-percent band-average radiometric gain change over the CPF period in the L1 products. Likewise, for band 11, the magenta line in figure 66 is a modeled gain trend based on the Internal Calibrator data (fig. 64), and the yellow line is the gain trend sampled into calibration parameters. Because of the relatively sharp decrease in response shortly after the safehold events, when compared with the response before the safehold events, calibration parameters were issued more frequently

to ensure high quality L1 products. As the rate of degradation has slowed, updated calibration parameters have returned to quarterly issuance.

Landsat 8 Relative Gains Relative gains account for the differences in responsivity among detectors within a spectral band. OLI relative gains are monitored using solar diffuser acquisitions, side slither acquisitions (which entail a 90-degree yaw maneuver over an invariant site to flatten the data), and scene statistics. Quarterly updates are completed using data from the solar diffuser acquisitions from quarter 3, 2024. Starting with the release of Collection 2, TIRS relative gain calibration updates also were completed quarterly using blackbody collects from the previous quarter. These calibration updates removed detector-to-detector striping (USGS, 2021c). Typical per-detector changes in relative gains between the previous quarter and this quarter for several bands are shown in figures 67, 68, 69, and 70 by analyzing data from within each quarter. In each figure, the x-axis indicates the detector number, and the y-axis indicates the change in relative gain between the quarters as a ratio. These changes in responsivity are accounted for in the L1 product by updating the following quarter’s CPF. The OLI detectors that have indicated a sudden change in responsivity of 0.5 percent or greater in the SWIR 1 and SWIR 2 bands since launch are shown in figures 71 and 72.

0.1

Calibration parameter file implementation of gain models, July 1, 2021

−0.1

Safehold event, November 1, 2020

−0.3 −0.5 −0.7 −0.9 −1.1 −1.3 0

Years since launch (February 11, 2013) EXPLANATION Gain model Coastal/aerosol band Red band Shortwave infrared 1 band

Blue band Near infrared band Shortwave infrared 2 band

Green band Panchromatic band Cirrus band

Calibration parameter file gain Blue band Coastal/aerosol band

Figure 65. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager lifetime gain trends and calibration gain updates.

Landsat 8 Radiometric Performance Summary 43 The x-axis indicates the date of the jump in responsivity, and the y-axis signifies the detector number. The observed responsivity jumps seem to be randomly scattered in time and location on the focal plane so do not seem to be associated

with an instrument event or failure. These jumps are only observed in the SWIR bands (SWIR 1, SWIR 2, and cirrus); the visible and near infrared band detectors have not indicated any jump behavior over the whole mission.

1.01 Safehold event, November 1, 2020

0.99

Gain ratio

0.98

0.97

0.96

0.95

0.94

0.93 7.6

8.1

8.6

9.1

9.6

10.1

10.6

11.1

11.6

Years since launch (February 11, 2013) EXPLANATION Band 10 Gain trend Calibration parameter file gain

Band 11 Gain trend Calibration parameter file gain

Figure 66. Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor gain degradation since the safehold event on November 1, 2020.

44 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024

1.002

Relative gain ratio

0.998

0.996

0.994

Largest change: 0.121 percent

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

Detector index

Figure 67. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager coastal/aerosol band per-detector change in relative gains between quarter 3 (July–September) and quarter 4 (October–December), 2024. 1.015

Relative gain ratio

1.010

1.005

Largest change: 1.519 percent

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

Detector index

Figure 68. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 1 band per-detector change in relative gains between quarter 3 (July–September) and quarter 4 (October–December), 2024.

Landsat 8 Radiometric Performance Summary 45

1.01

Relative gain ratio

1.005

0.995

Largest change: 0.645 percent

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

Detector index

Figure 69. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 2 band per-detector change in relative gains between quarter 3 (July–September) and quarter 4 (October–December), 2024.

1.002

Relative gain ratio

1.001

0.999

0.998

0.997

Largest change: 0.124 percent 0.996 0

2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

12,000

Detector index

Figure 70. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager panchromatic band per-detector change in relative gains between quarter 3 (July–September) and quarter 4 (October–December), 2024.

46 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024

7,410

Shortwave infrared 1

6,916 6,422 5,928

Detector number

5,434 4,940 4,446 3,952 3,458 2,964 2,470 1,976 1,482 988 494 0 Oct. 3, 2013

Feb. 15, 2015

June 29, 2016

Nov. 11, 2017

Mar. 26, 2019

Aug. 7, 2020

Dec. 20, 2021

May 4, 2023

Sept. 15, 2024

Date EXPLANATION Observed detector response jump

Figure 71. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 1 lifetime jumps in detector responsivity.

7,410

Shortwave infrared 2

6,916 6,422 5,928

Detector number

5,434 4,940 4,446 3,952 3,458 2,964 2,470 1,976 1,482 988 494 0 Oct. 3, 2013

Feb. 15, 2015

June 29, 2016

Nov. 11, 2017

Mar. 26, 2019

Aug. 7, 2020

Dec. 20, 2021

May 4, 2023

Sept. 15, 2024

Date EXPLANATION Observed detector response jump

Figure 72. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager shortwave infrared 2 lifetime jumps in detector responsivity.

Landsat 8 Geometric Performance Summary 47

Landsat 8 Geometric Performance Summary The Landsat 8 on-orbit geometric performance for the reporting quarter (quarter 4, 2024) meets all requirements outlined in USGS (2019a). The quarterly results summary is provided in table 7. Beginning with quarter 3, 2024, quarterly CPFs have been updated to improve the processing system’s capability to generate L1TP products. The corrections introduced in the updated CPFs address sporadic errors with the Landsat 8 positioning information, ultimately resulting in more L1TP products.

Landsat 8 Band Registration Accuracy Internal band registration measures how accurately the various Landsat 8 spectral bands are geometrically aligned to each other. The assessment provides a numerical evaluation of the accuracy of the band registration within an image using automated cross-correlation techniques between the bands to be assessed (USGS, 2021c). Landsat 8 OLI band registration performance has been stable over time. Quarterly band-to-band maximum registration accuracy for each band combination, except for the cirrus band, is shown in figure 73. Within the figure, blue bars indicate maximum registration accuracy in the line direction, and green bars indicate maximum registration accuracy in the sample direction. Lifetime OLI band registration accuracy for all bands is 4.17 meters (not shown), and lifetime OLI band registration accuracy for all bands, excluding the cirrus band, is 3.26 meters, which is well within the instrument specification accuracy. OLI band registration accuracy for all bands during quarter 4, 2024, is

4.45 meters (table 7), and OLI band registration accuracy for all bands, excluding the cirrus band, during quarter 4, 2024, is 3.41 meters (table 7). Landsat 8 TIRS band registration performance has been stable throughout the instrument’s lifetime, including after changes in Scene Select Mechanism (SSM) operation beginning in December 2014. This behavior is well within specification, as shown in figure 74, and quarter 4, 2024, results are consistent with past performance. Within the figure, blue bars indicate maximum registration accuracy in the line direction, and green bars indicate maximum registration accuracy in the sample direction. Lifetime TIRS band registration accuracy is 9.0 meters, and during quarter 4, 2024, the accuracy is 7.4 meters (table 7). Since quarter 3, 2020 (Collection 2 data), registration bias between the line and sample directions has reduced, which may be because of better SSM pointing stability, the TIRS relative gain update, or both. Lifetime Landsat 8 TIRS to OLI band registration accuracy by quarter is shown in figure 75. Before the Collection 2 CPF update, seasonal effects are noticeable but leveled off after the release of Collection 2 in December 2020, as indicated by the closely aligned line (blue bars) and sample (green bars) accuracies. Lifetime Landsat 8 TIRS to OLI registration accuracy (excluding the cirrus band) is 19.6 meters in the line direction and 18.0 meters in the sample direction. Quarter 4, 2024, TIRS to OLI registration accuracy (excluding the cirrus band) is 18.2 meters in the line direction and 17.8 meters in the sample direction.

Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager to Thermal Infrared Sensor Alignment Landsat 8 OLI to TIRS alignment knowledge is critical to ensure that the L1 product accuracy requirements can be met. The alignment between OLI and TIRS instruments is

Table 7. Landsat 8 geometric performance summary, quarter 4 (October–December), 2024. [The previous quarter is quarter 3 (July–September), 2024. OLI, Operational Land Imager; <, less than; LE90, linear error with 90-percent confidence; CE90, circular error with 90-percent confidence; L1T, Level 1 terrain-corrected product; >, greater than; TIRS, Thermal Infrared Sensor]

Measured value from this quarter

Measured value from previous quarter1

Required value

OLI band registration accuracy (all bands)

4.45

3.79

<4.5

Meter (LE90)

OLI band registration accuracy (no cirrus)

3.41

3.18

<4.5

Meter (LE90)

Absolute geodetic accuracy

16.2

13.6

<65

Meter (CE90)

Relative geodetic accuracy

7.8

<25

Meter (CE90)

Geometric (L1T) accuracy

4.2

3.8

<12

Meter (CE90)

OLI edge slope

0.030

0.029

>0.027

1 per meter

TIRS band registration accuracy

7.4

8.9

<18

Meter (LE90)

TIRS to OLI registration accuracy

18.2

18.8

<30

Meter (LE90)

Requirement

1From Haque and others (2025).

Unit

2013Q2 2013Q3 2013Q4 2014Q1 2014Q2 2014Q3 2014Q4 2015Q1 2015Q2 2015Q3 2015Q4 2016Q1 2016Q2 2016Q3 2016Q4 2017Q1 2017Q2 2017Q3 2017Q4 2018Q1 2018Q2 2018Q3 2018Q4 2019Q1 2019Q2 2019Q3 2019Q4 2020Q1 2020Q2 2020Q3 2020Q4 2021Q1 2021Q2 2021Q3 2021Q4 2022Q1 2022Q2 2022Q3 2022Q4 2023Q1 2023Q2 2023Q3 2023Q4 2024Q1 2024Q2 2024Q3 2024Q4 All

Linear error with 90-percent confidence, in meters 2013Q2 2013Q3 2013Q4 2014Q1 2014Q2 2014Q3 2014Q4 2015Q1 2015Q2 2015Q3 2015Q4 2016Q1 2016Q2 2016Q3 2016Q4 2017Q1 2017Q2 2017Q3 2017Q4 2018Q1 2018Q2 2018Q3 2018Q4 2019Q1 2019Q2 2019Q3 2019Q4 2020Q1 2020Q2 2020Q3 2020Q4 2021Q1 2021Q2 2021Q3 2021Q4 2022Q1 2022Q2 2022Q3 2022Q4 2023Q1 2023Q2 2023Q3 2023Q4 2024Q1 2024Q2 2024Q3 2024Q4 All

Linear error with 90-percent confidence, in meters

48 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024

Operational Land Imager

3.5

2.5

1.5

0.5

Calendar year and quarter (Q) EXPLANATION

Maximum registration accuracy Line direction

Line direction Sample direction

Figure 73. Graph showing Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager lifetime band (excluding cirrus) registration accuracy by quarter. Thermal Infrared Sensor

Calendar year and quarter (Q)

Maximum registration accuracy

EXPLANATION

Sample direction

Figure 74. Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor lifetime band registration accuracy by quarter.

Thermal Infrared Sensor to Operational Land Imager

0 2013Q2 2013Q3 2013Q4 2014Q1 2014Q2 2014Q3 2014Q4 2015Q1 2015Q2 2015Q3 2015Q4 2016Q1 2016Q2 2016Q3 2016Q4 2017Q1 2017Q2 2017Q3 2017Q4 2018Q1 2018Q2 2018Q3 2018Q4 2019Q1 2019Q2 2019Q3 2019Q4 2020Q1 2020Q2 2020Q3 2020Q4 2021Q1 2021Q2 2021Q3 2021Q4 2022Q1 2022Q2 2022Q3 2022Q4 2023Q1 2023Q2 2023Q3 2023Q4 2024Q1 2024Q2 2024Q3 2024Q4 All

Linear error with 90-percent confidence, in meters

Landsat 8 Geometric Performance Summary 49

Calendar year and quarter (Q) EXPLANATION Maximum registration accuracy Line direction

Sample direction

Figure 75. Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor to Operational Land Imager lifetime band (excluding cirrus) registration accuracy by quarter.

periodically measured using correlation-based methods to ensure that the band-to-band alignment requirements for all Landsat 8 bands can be met (USGS, 2021c). The alignment estimates are used to update the calibration parameters in the CPFs when the observed changes are determined to affect the performance requirements. Landsat 8 TIRS to OLI pitch alignment measurements over instrument lifetimes are shown in figure 76. The November 2020 safehold events did substantially affect pitch alignment, but the ECCOE Landsat Cal/Val Team continues to monitor pitch alignment. From Haque and others (2022), in quarter 4, 2021, a small change in the TIRS to OLI pitch alignment was observed, which is similar to the seasonal trend observed in previous years; however, the magnitude of this trend was not the same as before, so it was unclear whether this new trend would continue. The trend continued in quarter 1, so a CPF update was issued in quarter 2 (April–June), 2022, for residual corrections to the alignment parameters. At this time, predictive estimates based on previous quarters, not knowing if the seasonal trend will be observed or not, made the CPF inconsistent with the seasonal pattern. With an intention to align the CPF more with the seasonal pattern for better prediction, subsequent predictive CPF updates for quarter 3, 2022; quarter 4, 2022; and quarter 1, 2023, were not changed. Based on previously observed seasonal patterns in the alignment trend, a TIRS-OLI alignment update was made for quarter 2, 2023, and unchanged for quarter 3, 2023. The April 2023 TIRS SSM excursion anomaly did not indicate any substantial effects in the TIRS to OLI pitch alignment. The lifetime TIRS to OLI

roll alignment is shown in figure 77, and the lifetime TIRS to OLI yaw alignment is shown in figure 78. The April 2023 TIRS SSM excursion anomaly did not indicate any substantial effects to roll or yaw alignment. Each light blue symbol on these figures represents one calibration scene, the dark blue solid lines indicate quarterly alignment averages, and the orange dashed lines indicate applied Collection 2 CPF correction values.

Landsat 8 Geometric Accuracy The Landsat 8 geometric assessment evaluates the absolute positional accuracy of the image products with respect to a ground (geometric) reference. The geometric accuracy assessment estimates the geometric error between the L1TP products and GCPs using automated cross-correlation techniques (USGS, 2021c). Based on analysis results, relative accuracy of the Collection 2 GCPs is comparable to the DOQ supersites, which are sites created from a mosaic of highly accurate high-resolution terrain-corrected aerial data. Comparatively, relative accuracy of the Collection 2 GCPs is substantially better than the internal consistency of the Collection 1 GCPs. Overall, cloud-contaminated scene-based results are the primary contributor to substandard geometric accuracy from L1TP products. Lifetime quarterly Landsat 8 geometric accuracy at a CE90 is shown in figure 79. Blue bars indicate the geometric accuracy estimated over supersite paths/rows (calibration sites) with cloud-free scenes (using DOQ GCPs for the trend since quarter 1, 2022), yellow bars indicate

50 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024

0.00024

Pitch

0.00023

Pitch angle, in radians

0.00022 0.00021 0.0002 0.00019 0.00018 0.00017 0.00016 0.00015 Mar. 1, 2013 Mar. 1, 2014

Mar. 1, 2015 Mar. 1, 2016

Mar. 1, 2017 Mar. 1, 2018 Mar. 1, 2019 Mar. 1, 2020 Mar. 1, 2021 Mar. 1, 2022 Mar. 1, 2023 Mar. 1, 2024

Date EXPLANATION Pitch estimated from a quarterly average

Pitch in the calibration parameter file

Pitch estimated from calibration scene

Figure 76. Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor to Operational Land Imager lifetime pitch alignment.

0.00172

Roll

Roll angle, in radians

0.00171

0.0017

0.00169

0.00168

0.00167

Mar. 1, 2013 Mar. 1, 2014 Mar. 1, 2015

Mar. 1, 2016 Mar. 1, 2017 Mar. 1, 2018 Mar. 1, 2019 Mar. 1, 2020 Mar. 1, 2021 Mar. 1, 2022 Mar. 1, 2023 Mar. 1, 2024

Date EXPLANATION Roll estimated from a quarterly average

Roll in the calibration parameter file

Roll estimated from calibration scene

Figure 77. Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor to Operational Land Imager lifetime roll alignment.

Landsat 8 Geometric Performance Summary 51

0.0035

Yaw

0.003

Yaw angle, in radians

0.0025 0.002 0.0015 0.001 0.0005 0 −0.0005 Mar. 1, 2013 Mar. 1, 2014 Mar. 1, 2015 Mar. 1, 2016 Mar. 1, 2017 Mar. 1, 2018 Mar. 1, 2019

Mar. 1, 2020

Mar. 1, 2021 Mar. 1, 2022

Mar. 1, 2023 Mar. 1, 2024

Date EXPLANATION Yaw estimated from a quarterly average

Yaw in the calibration parameter file

Yaw estimated from calibration scene

Geometric accuracy

14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 2013Q1 2013Q2 2013Q3 2013Q4 2014Q1 2014Q2 2014Q3 2014Q4 2015Q1 2015Q2 2015Q3 2015Q4 2016Q1 2016Q2 2016Q3 2016Q4 2017Q1 2017Q2 2017Q3 2017Q4 2018Q1 2018Q2 2018Q3 2018Q4 2019Q1 2019Q2 2019Q3 2019Q4 2020Q1 2020Q2 2020Q3 2020Q4 2021Q1 2021Q2 2021Q3 2021Q4 2022Q1 2022Q2 2022Q3 2022Q4 2023Q1 2023Q2 2023Q3 2023Q4 2024Q1 2024Q2 2024Q3 2024Q4 All

Circular error with 90-percent confidence, in meters

Figure 78. Graph showing Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor to Operational Land Imager lifetime yaw alignment.

Calendar year and quarter (Q) EXPLANATION Calibration site—Collection 2 ground control points using cloud-free scenes (digital orthophoto quadrangle points since 2022) Calibration site—Collection 2 ground control points with no cloud constraints All scenes—Collection 2 ground control points with no cloud constraints

Figure 79. Graph showing Landsat 8 lifetime geometric accuracy by quarter.

52 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024 geometric accuracy estimated over supersite paths/rows (calibration site scenes subsetting from all the L1TP scenes with no cloud constraints) using Collection 2 GCPs, and green bars indicate geometric accuracy estimated over all L1TP scenes processed in Collection 2 using Collection 2 GCPs (no cloud constraints). All results for this quarter are within the accuracy specification. Lifetime and quarter 4, 2024, geometric accuracies for L1TP products are 3.8 and 4.2 meters when compared against cloud-free scenes over supersite paths/rows, 5.4 and 6.3 meters when compared against all L1TP scenes over supersite paths/ rows only, and 10.4 and 10.9 meters when analyzing all the L1TP scenes processed in Collection 2, respectively. Note that seasonal effect is a factor in accuracy results.

Landsat 8 Geodetic Accuracy

Geodetic accuracy

40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

2013Q1 2013Q2 2013Q3 2013Q4 2014Q1 2014Q2 2014Q3 2014Q4 2015Q1 2015Q2 2015Q3 2015Q4 2016Q1 2016Q2 2016Q3 2016Q4 2017Q1 2017Q2 2017Q3 2017Q4 2018Q1 2018Q2 2018Q3 2018Q4 2019Q1 2019Q2 2019Q3 2019Q4 2020Q1 2020Q2 2020Q3 2020Q4 2021Q1 2021Q2 2021Q3 2021Q4 2022Q1 2022Q2 2022Q3 2022Q4 2023Q1 2023Q2 2023Q3 2023Q4 2024Q1 2024Q2 2024Q3 2024Q4 All

Circular error with 90-percent confidence, in meters

The purpose of the geodetic accuracy assessment is to ensure that the Landsat 8 L0Rp data can be successfully processed into L1 systematic products that meet the system requirement of 65 meters at a CE90 horizontal accuracy. To measure the accuracy, calibration scenes are automatically correlated with data from the panchromatic band to measure the discrepancy between the known ground location and the position predicted by the OLI geometric model (USGS, 2021c). Based on analysis results, absolute accuracy of the Collection 2 GCPs is comparable to the DOQ supersites and is substantially better compared to the Collection 1 GCPs

(Rengarajan and others, 2020). Lifetime quarterly Landsat 8 geodetic accuracy (CE90) is shown in figure 80. Blue bars indicate the accuracy estimated using DOQ supersite paths/rows (calibration site), and green bars indicate accuracy estimated from all L1TP scenes processed in Collection 2 using Collection 2 GCPs. As with the geometric accuracy, a wide variety of scene types (cloud-contaminated, islands, desert, snow covered, ice sheets, and so on) are the primary contributors to the poor geodetic accuracy for Collection 2 GCP-based results. Although quarters 1, 2, and 3, 2021, indicated a slight increase in the geodetic accuracy offset, the lifetime results have been consistently well within the accuracy specification. The increase in the geodetic accuracy is because of a systematic bias in the along-track direction observed since the November 2020 safehold events. After the bias stabilized, an update to the sensor alignment parameters in the CPF was released in quarter 4, 2021, resulting in a decrease in the observed geodetic offsets. An additional sensor alignment update was released in quarter 2, 2022, in response to an along-track offset that was greater than 10 meters and continuing to increase (Haque and others, 2023). Geodetic accuracy has been within 10 meters (considering both along-track and across-track directions) since then, including after the April 2023 TIRS SSM excursion anomaly (USGS, 2023), and no sensor alignment update was necessary. Lifetime geodetic accuracies for systematic products are 16.2 meters when compared using DOQ GCPs over supersites and 25.7 meters when compared using Collection 2 GCPs over all the scenes processed in Collection 2, respectively.

Calendar year and quarter (Q) EXPLANATION Calibration site—Digital orthophoto quadrangle ground control points All scenes—Collection 2 ground control points

Figure 80. Graph showing Landsat 8 lifetime geodetic accuracy by quarter.

Quarterly Level 2 Validation Results 53

Quarterly Level 2 Validation Results

small decay in responsivity for all bands. The x-axis represents years since launch (February 11, 2013), and the y-axis represents surface reflectance. The seasonal effect has been reduced from all bands using appropriate models. Although still in the early stages of the mission, the Collection 2, Level 2 lifetime surface reflectance observations for seven Landsat 9 spectral bands for the Libya 4 PICS are provided in figure 82. Overall, Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 OLI trends indicated stability for Level 2 surface reflectance based on the analysis completed. No substantial instability was monitored in any band according to the lifetime drift estimate results.

In addition to L1 products, Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 surface reflectance PICS trending is completed by the Cal/ Val Team. The primary purpose of Level 2 surface reflectance PICS trending is to repeatedly characterize the temporal stability of the OLI sensors. The CNES region of interest has been chosen for completing the analysis, and the results are summarized in this section.

Level 2 Surface Reflectance Pseudoinvariant Calibration Site Trending The Collection 2, Level 2 lifetime surface reflectance trends for seven Landsat 8 spectral bands for the Libya 4 PICS are provided in figure 81. Drift estimate results indicate a

0.8

Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager, Collection 2

0.7

Surface reflectance

0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0

Years since launch (February 11, 2013) EXPLANATION Spectral band (drift per year, in percent) Blue (−0.030)

Red (−0.050)

Shortwave infrared 1 (−0.059)

Green (−0.065)

Near infrared (−0.048)

Shortwave infrared 2 (−0.044)

Coastal/aerosol (−0.006)

Figure 81. Graph showing Libya 4 pseudoinvariant calibration site surface reflectance trending, Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager, Collection 2.

54 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024

0.8

Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager, Collection 2

0.7

Surface reflectance

0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0

0.5

1.5

2.5

Years since launch (September 27, 2021) EXPLANATION Spectral band (drift per year, in percent) Blue

Red

Shortwave infrared 1

Green

Near infrared

Shortwave infrared 2

Coastal/aerosol

Figure 82. Graph showing Libya 4 pseudoinvariant calibration site surface reflectance trending, Landsat 9 Operational Land Imager, Collection 2.

Summary The Landsat 9 and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager and Thermal Infrared Sensor on-orbit radiometric and geometric performance for quarter 4 (October–December), 2024, meets all requirements. Additionally, quarterly Level 2 validation results for Landsat 9 and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager indicated stability for Level 2 surface reflectance.

References Cited Barsi, J.A., Montanaro, M., Thome, K., Raqueno, N.G., Hook, S., Anderson, C.H., and Micijevic, E., 2022, Early radiometric performance of Landsat-9 Thermal Infrared Sensor: Proceedings of SPIE 12232, Earth Observing Systems, v. XXVII, article 122320U, 31 p., accessed January 2025 at https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2634058. Choate, M.J., Rengarajan, R., Storey, J.C., and Lubke, M., 2022, Landsat 9 geometric characteristics using underfly data: Remote Sensing (Basel), v. 14, no. 15, article 3781, 18 p., accessed January 2025 at https://doi.org/10.3390/ rs14153781. Committee on Earth Observation Satellites, 2021, PICS— Pseudo-Invariant Calibration Sites: Committee on Earth Observation Satellites, Cal/Val Portal website, accessed January 2025 at https://calvalportal.ceos.org/pics_sites.

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References Cited 55 Haque, M.O., Hasan, M.N., Shrestha, A., Rengarajan, R., Lubke, M., Shaw, J.L., Ruslander, K., Micijevic, E., Choate, M.J., Anderson, C., Clauson, J., Thome, K., Levy, R., Miller, J., and Ding, L., 2025, ECCOE Landsat quarterly Calibration and Validation report—Quarter 3, 2024: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2025–1006, 56 p., accessed January 2025 at https://doi.org/10.3133/ ofr20251006. Haque, M.O., Rengarajan, R., Lubke, M., Hasan, M.N., Shrestha, A., Shaw, J.L., Denevan, A., Ruslander, K., Micijevic, E., Choate, M.J., Anderson, C., Thome, K., Barsi, J., Kaita, E., Levy, R., Miller, J., and Ding, L., 2024, ECCOE Landsat quarterly Calibration and Validation report—Quarter 4, 2023 (ver. 1.1, December 2024): U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2024–1026, 62 p., accessed January 2025 at https://doi.org/10.3133/ ofr20241026. Haque, M.O., Rengarajan, R., Lubke, M., Hasan, M.N., Shrestha, A., Tuli, F.T., Shaw, J.L., Denevan, A., Franks, S., Micijevic, E., Choate, M.J., Anderson, C., Thome, K., Kaita, E., Barsi, J., Levy, R., and Miller, J., 2023, ECCOE Landsat quarterly Calibration and Validation report— Quarter 3, 2022: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2023–1013, 38 p., accessed January 2025 at https://doi.org/ 10.3133/ofr20231013. Haque, M.O., Rengarajan, R., Lubke, M., Tuli, F.T.Z., Shaw, J.L., Hasan, M.N., Denevan, A., Franks, S., Micijevic, E., Choate, M.J., Anderson, C., Markham, B., Thome, K., Kaita, E., Barsi, J., Levy, R., and Ong, L., 2022, ECCOE Landsat quarterly Calibration and Validation report— Quarter 4, 2021: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2022–1033, 38 p., accessed January 2025 at https://doi.org/ 10.3133/ofr20221033. Micijevic, E., Rengarajan, R., Haque, M.O., Lubke, M., Tuli, F.T., Shaw, J.L., Hasan, N., Denevan, A., Franks, S., Choate, M.J., Anderson, C., Markham, B., Thome, K., Kaita, E., Barsi, J., Levy, R., and Ong, L., 2021, ECCOE Landsat quarterly Calibration and Validation report— Quarter 2, 2021: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2021–1105, 40 p., accessed January 2025 at https://doi.org/ 10.3133/ofr20211105. Micijevic, E., Rengarajan, R., Haque, M.O., Lubke, M., Tuli, F.T.Z., Shaw, J.L., Hasan, N., Denevan, A., Franks, S., Choate, M.J., Anderson, C., Markham, B., Thome, K., Kaita, E., Barsi, J., Levy, R., and Ong, L., 2022, ECCOE Landsat quarterly Calibration and Validation report— Quarter 3, 2021: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2022–1025, 38 p., accessed January 2025 at https://doi.org/ 10.3133/ofr20221025.

Montanaro, M., Barsi, J.A., Lunsford, A., Rohrbach, S., and Markham, B.L., 2014, Performance of the Thermal Infrared Sensor on-board Landsat 8 over the first year on-orbit: Proceedings of SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, San Diego, Calif., 2014, Earth Observing Systems XIX, v. 9218, 14 p., accessed January 2025 at https://doi.org/ 10.1117/12.2063457. National Geospatial Advisory Committee, 2020, Landsat data—Community standard for data calibration (October 2020): Landsat Advisory Group, 12 p., accessed January 2025 at https://www.fgdc.gov/ngac/meetings/ october-2020/ngac-paper-landsat-data-community- standard-for.pdf. Rengarajan, R., Choate, M., Hasan, M.H., and Denevan, A., 2024, Co-registration accuracy between Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 orthorectified products: Remote Sensing of Environment, v. 301, article 113947, 30 p., accessed January 2025 at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2023.113947. Rengarajan, R., Storey, J.C., and Choate, M.J., 2020, Harmonizing the Landsat ground reference with the Sentinel-2 Global Reference Image using space-based bundle adjustment: Remote Sensing (Basel), v. 12, no. 19, article 3132, 26 p., accessed January 2025 at https://doi.org/ 10.3390/rs12193132. U.S. Geological Survey [USGS], 2019a, Landsat 8 (L8) data users handbook (ver. 5.0, November 2019): U.S. Geological Survey, Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center, LSDS–1574, 106 p., accessed January 2025 at https://www.usgs.gov/landsat-missions/landsat-8-data- users-handbook. U.S. Geological Survey [USGS], 2019b, Landsat 9 (ver. 1.3, August 2022): U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2019–3008, 2 p., accessed January 2025 at https://doi.org/ 10.3133/fs20193008. U.S. Geological Survey [USGS], 2020a, Landsat 8–9 Operational Land Imager (OLI)—Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) Collection 2 Level 1 (L1) data format control book (DFCB) (ver. 6.0, September 2020): U.S. Geological Survey, Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center, LSDS–1822, 58 p., accessed January 2025 at https://www.usgs.gov/media/files/landsat-8-9-olitirs- collection-2-level-1-data-format-control-book. U.S. Geological Survey [USGS], 2020b, Landsat 8–9 Operational Land Imager (OLI)—Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) Collection 2 Level 2 (L2) data format control book (DFCB) (ver. 7.0, December 2022): U.S. Geological Survey, Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center, LSDS–1328, 72 p., accessed January 2025 at https://www .usgs.gov/media/files/landsat-8-9-olitirs-collection-2-level- 2-data-format-control-book.

56 ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024 U.S. Geological Survey [USGS], 2021a, EarthExplorer: U.S. Geological Survey database, accessed January 2025 at https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov. U.S. Geological Survey [USGS], 2021b, EROS Cal/Val Center of Excellence (ECCOE): U.S. Geological Survey website, accessed January 2025 at https://www.usgs.gov/calval. U.S. Geological Survey [USGS], 2021c, Landsat 8–9 Calibration and Validation (Cal/Val) algorithm description document (ADD) (ver. 4.0, January 2021): U.S. Geological Survey, Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center, LSDS–1747, 807 p., accessed January 2025 at https://www.usgs.gov/media/files/landsat-8-9-calibration- validation-algorithm-description-document.

U.S. Geological Survey [USGS], 2022, Landsat 9 data users handbook (ver. 1.0, February 2022): U.S. Geological Survey, Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center, LSDS–2082, 115 p., accessed January 2025 at https://www.usgs.gov/media/files/landsat-9-data-users- handbook. U.S. Geological Survey [USGS], 2023, Temporary pause in Landsat 8 product processing: U.S. Geological Survey website, accessed January 2025 at https://www.usgs.gov/ landsat-missions/news/temporary-pause-landsat-8-product- processing.

For more information about this publication, contact: Director, USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science Center 47914 252nd Street Sioux Falls, SD 57198 605–594–6151 For additional information, visit: https://www.usgs.gov/centers/eros Publishing support provided by the Rolla and Baltimore Publishing Service Centers

Haque and others—ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024—Open-File Report 2025–1036, ver. 1.1

ISSN 2331-1258 (online) https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20251036

ECCOE Landsat Quarterly Calibration and Validation Report—Quarter 4, 2024

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