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image of HLS data
HLS data showing croplands in the US
image of HLS Sentinel-2 data over Kansas

HLS

Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2

The Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2 (HLS) project is an extension of research conducted at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, that takes input data from the joint NASA/USGS Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 and the ESA (European Space Agency) Sentinel-2A, Sentinel-2B, and Sentinel-2C satellites to generate a harmonized, analysis-ready surface reflectance data product with observations every two to three days.

Principal Investigator

Dr. Jeff Masek

Partners

USGS

Data Centers

LP DAAC

The HLS project is a major outcome of the Satellite Needs Working Group assessment in 2016. In that assessment, federal agencies and end users identified a need for more frequent Landsat-like observations to track short-term changes in vegetation and other land components to support agricultural monitoring and land cover classification at moderate to high resolution in both the visible and thermal components of the electromagnetic spectrum. Spectral similarities between the Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), the Landsat 9 OLI-2, and the Sentinel-2 MultiSpectral Instrument (MSI) present an opportunity to harmonize data from these sensors to generate higher-frequency imagery products for land surface monitoring and applications.

Previous versions of HLS data products produced by the HLS Science Team at Goddard had limited spatial coverage — only covering North America and other select global locations. The current version of the HLS algorithm is a cloud-based software stack that expands the spatial coverage to include all land masses globally, outside of Antarctica.

Two data products are generated as part of the HLS project: the L30 data product generated with Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 data, and the S30 product generated using Sentinel-2 data. These data are available through Earthdata Search as well as through NASA's Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC). Feedback or questions about HLS data products can be made in the Earthdata Forum for HLS.

HLS data products greatly improve current publicly-available remote sensing land monitoring capabilities, particularly in terms of the frequency of land surface observations through time. The harmonization of HLS ensures that the Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 collection (30-meter spatial resolution with a 16-day repeat period) and the Sentinel-2A/B/C collection (10 to 20-meter spatial resolution with a five-day repeat period) can be used as if they were a single collection. Through HLS, land surface observations can be acquired at an unprecedented 30-meter spatial resolution every two to three days.

The frequent revisit times of HLS allow for time series of land surface applications at the field/plot scale, which supports a wide range of applications, including agricultural health, insect infestations, and natural hazard impacts. Data from the Sentinel-2C mission (launched in 2024) is now active and incorporated into HLS data products, further improving re-visit times and land monitoring capabilities.

Chart of temporal coverage of Landsat and Sentinel 2 Constellation.

HLS revisit times (orange line) and scheduled Landsat and Sentinel-2 launch dates (green and blue bars). Click on image for larger view. Credit: HLS Science Team.

The HLS project is a collaborative effort between NASA and other external agencies, including the USGS and ESA. 

At NASA, the HLS algorithm is developed by the HLS Science Team and is ported and operated by the Interagency Implementation and Advanced Concepts Team (IMPACT) located at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL. The data products are archived at and distributed by NASA's Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC), which is a partnership between NASA and the USGS. Coordination between these partners on the data life cycle ensures that HLS data are high-quality (research quality once the provisional tag is removed), freely available, and accessible to end users with two to three day latency. 

External HLS partners (USGS and ESA) provide access to the input data at scale for global HLS data to be produced within the latency targets identified above. In addition, USGS provides the source code for atmospheric correction so the Level 1 input top of atmosphere reflectance can be converted to the output L30 and S30 surface reflectance data products.

HLS processing workflow.

HLS processing workflow. Credit: HLS Science Team.

The below infographic shows bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) Normalization accounts for changes in solar and view angles for the same ground target, which vary between MSI and OLI. MSI Band Pass Adjustment accounts for small differences between the equivalent MSI and OLI spectral bands.