Maintaining power to the batteries is critical to sustain proper operation of the spacecraft and the primary solar array drive failed under similar circumstances last January. As a result of this current situation, imaging operations will be suspended for at least the next two weeks, or until attempts to solve the problem have been resolved.

Landsat 5, launched in March 1984, has performed far beyond its three-year design lifetime and has continued to collect global land surface coverage. Over 125,000 images, from the Chernobyl disaster to Hurricane Katrina, have proven invaluable for identifying the impact of natural and human-induced changes. Landsat 5 and Landsat 7, together, have been providing full global coverage of the Earth's surface every eight days.

The Landsat Program is the longest running program providing vital images of the Earth's surface from space. The first Landsat satellite was launched in 1972. In 1999, the Landsat Program took a giant technological leap forward with the launch of Landsat 7.

The Landsat Program is a joint initiative of USGS and NASA to gather Earth resource data using a series of satellites including Landsats 5 and 7. NASA is responsible for developing and launching the spacecrafts, while the USGS is responsible for flight operations, maintenance, and management of all data reception, processing, archiving, product generation, and distribution. The primary objective of the Landsat Program is to ensure a consistent, calibrated collection of Earth imagery that can be used to scientifically measure change over decades and beyond.

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