The Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) sensor was carried onboard Landsats 4 and 5 from July 1982 to May 2012 with a 16-day repeat cycle, referenced to the Worldwide Reference System-2. Very few images were acquired from November 2011 to May 2012. The satellite began decommissioning activities in January 2013.

The Thematic Mapper (TM) is an advanced, multispectral scanning, Earth resources sensor designed to achieve higher image resolution, sharper spectral separation, improved geometric fidelity, and greater radiometric accuracy and resolution than the Multispectral Scanner (MSS) sensor. TM data are sensed in seven spectral bands simultaneously. A TM scene has an Instantaneous Field Of View (IFOV) of 30m x 30m in bands 1-5 and 7 while band 6 has an IFOV of 120m x 120m on the ground (band 6 was collected at 120 meters, but was resampled to 30 meters). Band 6 senses thermal (heat) infrared radiation. Landsat can only acquire night scenes in band 6. The approximate scene size is 170 km north-south by 183 km east-west (106 mi by 114 mi).