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NASA is gearing up for the Monday (Feb. 11) launch of an Earth-observation satellite that will continue a celebrated 40-year project to monitor our planet’s surface from space.

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission is slated to blast off Monday at 1:02 p.m. EST (1802 GMT/10:02 a.m. PST) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The LDCM satellite is the eighth overall in the Landsat program, which has been scrutinizing Earth from orbit continuously since Landsat 1 launched in 1972.

Mission team members call LDCM the most advanced and capable Landsat spacecraft ever built. It should help the United States and other nations around the world monitor environmental change and better manage their natural resources, they say.

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Nasa Landsat

The payload faIring containing the Landsat Data Continuity Mission spacecraft arrives at Vandenberg Air Force Base’s Space Launch Complex-3E where it will be hoisted atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V for launch. Image released Jan 25, 2013.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/09/landsat-launch-earth-observing-satellite-nasa_n_2652621.html?ref=topbar

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