NASA awards EarthDaily $3M task order to test commercial data against Landsat

NASA has awarded EarthDaily a $3 million task order, announced on 26 October 2026, to supply EarthDaily Constellation data and technical support. NASA and the US Geological Survey (USGS) will use it to assess how commercial observations could fit into federal land imaging, under the joint Sustainable Land Imaging commercial transition initiative.

The agencies will test the data against Landsat requirements, including calibration, stability, radiometric and geometric performance, and harmonisation. Trials will pass the data through the existing USGS and NASA processing chains for analysis-ready and harmonised Landsat and Sentinel-2 products. They will also check whether Landsat-grade surface reflectance and surface temperature can be produced, and whether AI-ready products are feasible.

Eight of the constellation's 10 satellites are in orbit. They image 22 spectral bands at 5 m native resolution in visible and near-infrared, 95 m in short-wave infrared and 120 m in thermal infrared.

Why it matters: The evaluation will show whether commercial constellations can meet Landsat-grade standards and extend the free archive with more frequent revisits. Users in Africa who rely on Landsat time series for land monitoring could benefit from any resulting hybrid government-commercial approach.