[fyi only - not really grass specific but of general interest]
This is second hand info regarding the current status of landsat (from
someone who attended a meeting at Goddard yesterday):
Darrel Williams, NASA Project Scientist, gave an update on where Landsat
stands. President Clinton signed a Presidential Decision Directive on May 5
defining new directions for the program. The Department of Defense is now
out of it. NASA will build and launch, and NOAA will operate Landsat 7. The
Department of Interior's EROS Data Center at Souix Falls, South Dakota will
distribute data at the cost of fulfilling user requests. Landsat 7 is
scheduled for launch in December 1998 and will be like the ETM+. It will
have direct downlinks (directly to a new Souix Falls ground station)
instead of using TDRSS, and will use solid state storage on board instead
of tape recorders.
--Darrell