Posted: Sat, Jan 28, 2006, 10:45 AM ET (1545 GMT)
An aging remote sensing satellite that went offline in late 2005 has returned to normal operations. The US Geological Survey announced Friday that the Landsat 5 spacecraft has started taking imagery again of the United States, with international observations to resume in the coming weeks. The spacecraft had been knocked out of commission in late November because of a problem with a solar array drive motor that kept the solar array from generating enough power to operate the spacecraft's instruments. engineers have since made adjustments to the solar array system that have increased the amount of power it can generate to acceptable levels. Landsat 5, launched in March 1984, remains critical to earth scientists and others, because of the loss of Landsat 6 upon launch over a decade ago and instrument problems with Landsat 7, in orbit since 1999. The White House has directed the USGS and NASA to begin work on a "Landsat Data Continuity Mission", a spacecraft that would replace the two existing Landsat spacecraft, but experts fear both Landsat 5 and 7 could fail before that replacement spacecraft can be built and launched.
