Landsat 6 was designed to continue the Landsat program and carried an improved suite of instruments. However, it failed to achieve orbit during launch, and forced the continued operation of the failing Landsat 4 and 5 vehicles.

The spacecraft had a structure of aluminum with graphite struts and a hydrazine propulsion system. A single solar array with 1-axis articulation produced 1430 W (BOL) and recharged two NiCd batteries with 100 AHr total capacity. Data was stored on-board using tape recorders for direct downlink to ground stations at 85 Mbps. The spacecraft was 3-axis stabilized, zero momentum with control to 0.01 deg using reaction wheels. The payload included the Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM) designed to provide 15 meter resolution in the panchromatic band and 30 meters resolution in the multispectral bands.

General Electric/Hughes received a $ 398 million contract to develop the satellite on 26 October 1992, including Hughes' $ 120 million infrared thematic mapper.

Design Life: 5 years. Typical orbit: 705 km circular, polar, sun-synchronous, repeating. Length: 4.00 m (13.10 ft). Associated Launch Vehicle: Titan 2.

• 1992 October 26 - Contract for Landsat 6 development -

  General Electric received the $ 398 million contract to develop the satellite, including Hughes' $ 120 million infrared thematic mapper.

• 1993 October 5 - Landsat 6 - Program: Landsat. Launch Site: Vandenberg. Launch Vehicle: Titan 2. FAILURE: Star-37XFP-ISS kick-motor malfunction. Apogee: 724 km (449 mi).

• Krebs, Gunter, Gunter's Space Page, University of Frankfurt, 1996. Accessed at: http://www.skyrocket.de/space.