Five years watching Earth: Landsat 9 just aced its design life

On September 27, NASA's Landsat 9 completed its five-year design life — still healthy, still watching. With its twin Landsat 8, it photographs nearly every spot on Earth every eight days, building the longest continuous record of our planet's surface ever made: 54 years and counting since Landsat 1. Farmers plan crops by it, firefighters track blazes, scientists watch forests and water. A quiet machine, doing exactly what it promised, five years straight.