Landsat and HLS advances highlighted at AGU25 in New Orleans

At the 2025 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting (AGU25) in New Orleans, researchers highlighted Landsat science and applications, with NASA Landsat 8/9 Program Scientist Nima Pahlevan contributing to a session titled “Public Data, National Priorities: Unlocking Value with Landsat.” The conference, held December 15–19 at the New Orleans Ernest N.

Morial Convention Center, drew thousands of scientists, educators, and policymakers under the theme “Where Science Connects Us.” The Landsat session emphasized how free and open Landsat data can drive innovation across public and private sectors, noting applications in energy development, artificial intelligence, national security and other national needs.

Panelists described Landsat as a foundational dataset whose long historical record and reliable observations support scientific and operational uses such as wildfire preparedness, forest management, urban heat island analysis and near‑real‑time change detection, and they tied these capabilities to the dataset’s large economic value.

“Landsat is our historical record of the Earth's surface,” said David Roy, lead member of the 2026–2030 Landsat Science Team. Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel‑2 (HLS) was a focus in multiple presentations. Junchang Ju, technical science lead on HLS, described milestones including an improved 1.6‑day temporal repeat in HLS Version 2.0 and a forthcoming low‑latency product.

Key Topics

Science, Landsat, New Orleans, Hls, Nima Pahlevan, Its_live