Landsat 1

Real Landsat hardware in flight configuration, solar panels spread, after tests at General Electric's Valley Forge plant, around 1972 Launched on July 23, 1972, as the Earth Resources Technology Satellite and renamed Landsat 1 in 1975, this was the first satellite built to map and monitor Earth's land. The two big panels powered cameras and a scanner that recorded farmland, forests, cities and coastlines. Its successors still fly, so the program now holds the longest continuous record of the land surface taken from space.