This week marked the 42 anniversary of the launch of the game-changing Landsat satellite. To celebrate, GIS Lounge has a post looking back on its achievements, including a neat little video of highlights.

GeoSpatial World have the news that China is set to launch a new high-definition Earth Observation satellite, Gaofen-2, later this year.

Also over in China is the news that mega-conglomerate (and e-commerce site) Alibaba will begin efforts to promote the civilian use of China’s home-grown satellite navigation system, Beidou.

For those that recall the LightSquared saga – whereby a 4G mobile phone operator nearly killed GPS across the US – you may be interested to know that said 4G operator, is now suing the US government for compensation, blaming them for leasing off a spectrum so close to the GPS bands. An interesting turn of events reported on by Inside GNSS.

Sensors and Systems has a post that poses the question: ‘is mapmaking becoming as easy as PhotoShop for the planet?’

GIS User has a roundup of ten of the coolest pieces of technology spotted at the recent Esri User Conference. Additionally, GIS Lounge has posted a collection of photos from the conference, too.

The All Points blog reports that thirty individuals from Smith, Harvard, and Standford Universities, as well as the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin signed on to an open letter from Tiny Smith College, MA, to the US Federal Aviation Administration to allow researchers to use drones.

And, finally, any Esri totin’, amateur astronauts in the audience will be pleased to know that the AnyGeo Blog has the news that it’s now possible to download Mars’ geological data in shape file format.