Concept
Landsat 5 was a low Earth orbit satellite launched on March 1, 1984, to collect of the surface of Earth. A continuation of the Landsat Program, Landsat 5 was jointly managed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Data from Landsat 5 was collected and distributed from the USGS's Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS). After 29 years in space, Landsat 5 was officially decommissioned on June 5, 2013. Near the end of its mission, Landsat 5's use was hampered by equipment failures, and it was largely superseded by Landsat 7 and Landsat 8. Mission scientists anticipated the satellite will re-enter Earth's atmosphere and disintegrate around 2034. Recognized by Guinness World Records as the longest-operating Earth-observing satellite mission in history, Landsat 5 orbited the planet more than 150,000 times while transmitting more than 2.5 million images of land surface conditions around the world, greatly outliving its original three-year design life. Landsat 5 had a maximum transmission bandwidth of 85 Mbit/s. It was deployed at an altitude of , and it took about 16 days to scan the entire Earth. The satellite was an identical copy of Landsat 4 and was originally intended as a backup. Therefore, Landsat 5 carried the same instruments, including the Thematic Mapper and Multi-Spectral Scanner. The Multi-Spectral Scanner was powered down in 1995, but reactivated again in 2012. Landsat 5 was launched by NASA from Vandenberg Air Force Base on March 1, 1984. Landsat 5 recorded many significant events. It was the first satellite to capture the nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986. Landsat 5 also documented deforestation occurring in tropical regions, and captured the devastating 2004 tsunami in southeast Asia. On November 26, 2005, the back-up solar array drive on Landsat 5 began exhibiting unusual behavior. The solar array drive maintains the proper pointing angle between the solar array and the Sun.