 The operational land imager, OLA, on Landsat 8 represents a generational change from heritage Landsat instruments in its design, while it maintains data continuity with the 40-plus-year Landsat data archive. It preserves the 30M ground sample distance, 185 km SWATH width and VIS slash NIR slash SWR spectral bands. Furthermore, data continuity resulted from extensive pre-launch and on-orbit calibration and characterization campaigns. This paper presents an overview of the OLA design, the pre-launch characterization results and the on-orbit performance. This article was authored by Edward J. Knight and Geerk Farron.