<snip>It was matter of time before observation satellites starting using likes of Starlink for downlink. Downlink has always been bottle neck for these satellites plus high cost of maintaining ground stations. In theory they can now download high definition video continuously. <snip>
https://investors.planet.com/news/news-details/2022/Planet-Reports-Financial-Results-for-First-Quarter-of-Fiscal-Year-2023/default.aspx2022Q1 Financial reportBusiness growing, but all costs (R&D, sell, admin) grow much faster than revenue, leads to much worse loss.https://investors.planet.com/news/news-details/2022/Planet-and-Bayer-Expand-Strategic-Relationship/default.aspxA new customer for agriculture.
Quote from: XRZ.YZ on 06/14/2022 10:49 pmhttps://investors.planet.com/news/news-details/2022/Planet-Reports-Financial-Results-for-First-Quarter-of-Fiscal-Year-2023/default.aspx2022Q1 Financial reportBusiness growing, but all costs (R&D, sell, admin) grow much faster than revenue, leads to much worse loss.https://investors.planet.com/news/news-details/2022/Planet-and-Bayer-Expand-Strategic-Relationship/default.aspxA new customer for agriculture.Their revenue maybe growing but not as fast as expenses. R&D, Sales &Market, Admin these have all double in since 4th quarter of 2021. R&D I can understand but the others?. Sent from my SM-A528B using Tapatalk
Life update: I’ve made the very tough decision to step down as President of Planet. I won’t be going far though—after my last day in May, I’ll be continuing on as an advisor to the executive team, and staying close to our work in DC as a new member of the Planet Federal board.
NASA has selected eight companies for a new award to help acquire Earth observation data and provide related services for the agency.The Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition Program On-Ramp1 Multiple Award contract is a firm-fixed-price indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity multiple-award contract with a maximum value of $476 million, cumulatively amongst all the selected contractors, and a performance period through Nov. 15, 2028.The selectees are: • BlackSky Geospatial Solutions, Inc. in Herndon, Virginia • ICEYE US Inc. in Irvine, California • MDA Geospatial Service Inc. in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada • Pixxel Space Technologies, Inc in El Segundo, California • Planet Labs Federal, Inc. in Arlington, Virginia • Satellogic Federal, LLC in Davidson, North Carolina • Teledyne Brown Engineering, Inc. in Huntsville, Alabama • The Tomorrow Companies Inc. in BostonUnder the contract, the recipients will be responsible for acquiring observation data from commercial sources that support NASA’s Earth science research and application activities that help improve life on the planet. The goal of the awards is to give NASA a cost-effective way to augment or complement the Earth observations acquired by the agency and other U.S. government and international agencies for the benefit of all.
Proud to announce that we've signed a multi-year contract with the German Space Agency at DLR!For the next three years, @DLR_en researchers will be able to leverage our PlanetScope monitoring and archive data and our RapidEye imagery of Germany dating back to 2009 to help advance research on climate change, the global economy, and national security.Learn more: https://go.planet.com/dlr
We are proud to announce our contract renewal with the Federal Police of Brazil for global daily monitoring over threatened rainforests.This seven-figure contract was formalized through our partner SCCON; and through the country’s @_redemaisbr program, the renewed contract will enable more than 100,000 users and more than 500 public institutions to continue monitoring 8.6 million square kilometers of Brazil. Learn more: https://go.planet.com/scconbrazil
Thrilled to announce that we have signed a contract with @CrystalSugarCo through our partner @SatAgroEN to support precision agriculture! 🌱Leveraging our PlanetScope data, American Crystal Sugar is informing their advanced sugar beet monitoring work in the northern United States. 🛰️🌎Learn more: https://go.planet.com/acs
We are proud to announce that we have signed a multi-year, seven-figure deal with Laconic to deliver AI-powered forest carbon insights. 🌳Through this partnership, Laconic will leverage our Forest Carbon products to offer their customers trends, correlations, and predictions to instill confidence in trusted carbon credit trading.Learn more: https://investors.planet.com/news/news-details/2024/Planet-Partners-with-Laconic-to-Deliver-AI-Powered-Forest-Carbon-Insights-Aiming-to-Enable-Informed-Carbon-Credit-Trading/default.aspx
We’re excited to announce that we’ve been selected by the @NGA_GEOINT for the $200M Luno B commercial data contract!This milestone partnership will provide the national security community with high-quality GEOINT (Geospatial Intelligence) data, enabling access to timely, actionable insights that support national security and defense operations. Through this contract, NGA will enhance the use of artificial intelligence in GEOINT, offering critical decision-making tools for policymakers and mission partners.Read more here: https://go.planet.com/lunob
We’re growing our strategic space partnerships like never before! 🛰️Today we announced our largest contract to date, a multi-year $230 million agreement for our Pelican satellites in an expansion with a long-standing, Asia-Pacific commercial partner.Through this major milestone, we’re accelerating key space programs and our partner is gaining critical capabilities with leading-edge technology. Get the details: https://investors.planet.com/news/news-details/2025/Planet-Signs-230-Million-Commercial-Agreement-for-Pelican-Satellites/default.aspx
Every tree, every forest, every quarter.We just launched our AI-powered Forest Carbon Monitoring product that measures changes to forest carbon and canopy across the globe at 3 meter resolution.This is the world’s first forest monitoring system offering insights at this granularity and scale.Read more: https://go.planet.com/fcm
Today, we are thrilled to launch Project Centinela, a new program aiming to equip the world’s leading biodiversity scientists and conservation advocates with @Planet’s unprecedented array of high-resolution, high-frequency satellite imagery, and analytic feeds.Over the next three years, the program will help support teams working at the forefront of the biodiversity crisis to monitor and safeguard up to 50 of the world’s vulnerable biodiversity hotspots.At its onset, Project Centinela has already engaged teams in 8 biodiversity-vulnerable locations across the globe (see below!).Interested in applying to the program or learning more? https://planet.com/pulse/planets-project-centinela-monitoring-vulnerable-biodiversity-hotspots-for-conservation-action/
New year, new executive leadership!We’re thrilled to announce that Thomas J. Murphy has been promoted to General Counsel and Trevor Hammond has returned to Planet as Chief Communications Officer. Both Thomas and Trevor have been exceptional counselors and critical to Planet’s growth and transformation as a leading space platform company throughout most of the past decade.Read more: https://planet.com/pulse/planet-rings-in-2025-by-welcoming-two-new-executive-team-members/
Proud to announce that General John W. “Jay” Raymond has been elected to join Planet’s board. As the former Chief of Space Operations of the @SpaceForceDoD, we look forward to his leadership insights regarding the space sector and with international governments.Learn more: https://go.planet.com/boardjwr
First light x4!We’re thrilled to share this first set of images from our hyperspectral satellite, Tanager-1, designed to monitor and help mitigate methane emissions. These scenes of Karachi, Pakistan represent just a fraction of the 420 different spectral bands that Tanager captures across Earth’s surface.@carbonmapper @NASAJPLhttps://planet.com/pulse/first-light-images-from-tanager-1-hyperspectral-satellite/
Pelican-2 and 36 Doves have landed!Our next generation, high-resolution satellite and 36 SuperDoves arrived at Vandenberg Space Force Base ahead of next month’s launch. Pelican-2 is equipped with the @nvidia Jetson platform for edge AI to power on-orbit computing, which will vastly reduce the time between data capture and its availability for analysis.Learn more about the Pelican fleet and our upcoming launch: https://planet.com/pulse/pelican-2-36-superdoves-arrived-in-vandenberg-california-for-launch/
To provide for additional launch options, Planet requests the flexibility to launch up to six of the first ten Pelican satellites to either SSO or an inclined orbit of 53 degrees. [...]Planet may utilize both U.S. and foreign launch opportunities as either primary or secondary payloads. Planet often takes advantage of “last minute” launch opportunities, or launch opportunities where the exact orbit is not known until very close to the launch date. To simplify the regulatory process, Planet agrees only to launch within the requested parameter ranges and presents analysis for worst-case scenarios within those ranges.
Planet submits that grant of the modification application is in the public interest and requests that the Space Bureau (“Bureau”) approve the application by mid-August 2025 in sufficient time to allow the Pelican satellites planned for launch in the latter half of 2025 to have increased flexibility in operational orbit and spectrum use.
SAT-MOD-20240723-00157On July 10, 2025, the Satellite Programs and Policy Division granted in part, with conditions, modification of the license of Planet Labs PBC for the Pelican-3 and 4 satellites.
JBI Application to Launch and Operate 10 EESS NGSO JSAT Pelican Satellites
As shared in its announcement last week, under the new commercial agreement, Planet will develop and launch the constellation of new Pelican high resolution satellites for SKY Perfect JSAT.
Planet Labs PBC requests modification of the license for its Pelican constellation to operate at different altitudes and inclinations than previously licensed, and to operate inter-satellite links (ISLs): • Operating Altitude: 440 km (± 25 km) • Insertion Altitude: 535 km • Inclination: Either Sun-Synchronous or 53 degrees (± 2 degrees)
Vance: You worked at NASA for a long time, you were quite controversial while you were there. You mentioned they don't love to do cheap projects, that was a a problem you kept running into. You did a low-cost lunar lander that you had to hide because it was...Marshall: ...so yeah and then there was the phones in space right yeah almost got fired yeah...Vance: And I know the US government is a big customer and we all love NASA in our heart. But quite easy to argue, [NASA has] seen better days in many ways. What should NASA be doing? What would you change to NASA right now if you were the administrator?Marshall: Well, good question. I mean, I think that... We could do more science and exploration for less money.Vance: Let's pretend right now you're the administrator, and they have to say yes to two or three things.Marshall: Well, I'm biased, but I would lean it more into commercial things. Take this Tanager mission I just mentioned, the hyperspectral satellite. That was this collaboration between us and JPL. It was going to cost 300 million per spacecraft to do that in the Earth systems budget.Marshall: Now we can pump out that spacecraft for about six or seven million, including launch. It took us some real R&D to get there, it's tens of millions of dollars, but then now we can pump them out. So we can launch a fleet of them, vastly lower costs.Marshall: So the collaboration between NASA's exquisite instruments and commercials making things cheaper and more affordable at scale can allow you not just to do the same thing, but to do the same thing with less money and faster. So I would apply that general rule across a wide variety. Now, there's going to be some things that you can't do that way. And I'm protective of NASA because I used to work there and I feel some of the recent decisions have been, what do they say? Ready, fire, aim. You know, it's been decisions before thinking through how to do it in a smart way. The intent has been very good, I think.Marshall: How do we figure out how to do this cheaper? There's been a revolution in space, in rockets and satellites. How do we do this cheaper? The intent, I think, makes a lot of sense. We've just got to do it with a little bit more precision.And I think companies like Planet stand ready to really help with that if we can.
Planet Labs PBC requests modification of its license to authorize: (1) the launch and operation of Pelican satellites 11-24 using Planet’s second generation Pelican (Pelican V2) spacecraft design, with insertion altitudes up to 535 km and operational orbit of 350 km +/- 25 km, with a mix of sun synchronous and 45-55 degree inclined orbits; (2) a single Pelican V2 spacecraft to be equipped with a steerable antenna for intersatellite link (ISL) demonstrations in the following frequencies:27.5-29.1 GHz and 29.5-30 GHz18.1-18.6 GHz, 18.8- 19.3 GHz, and 19.7-20.2 GHz
Amendment to Pending Modification to Increase Pelican V2 Insertion Orbit
Planet Labs today announced a multi-year low 9-figure agreement with the Swedish Armed Forces to rapidly deliver a suite of satellites, space-based data and awareness solutions to support the country’s peace and security operations. This agreement marks Planet’s third Satellite Services contract in twelve months, signaling robust demand for Planet’s innovative, rapidly deployed space-based hardware and software solutions.Through the multi-year contract, Sweden will own a suite of Planet’s cutting-edge satellites, and have access to Planet’s high-resolution data, and intelligence solutions. By standardizing this model, Planet offers sovereign nations a cost-effective, low-risk, and fast pathway to advanced space-based capabilities without the prohibitive capital investment and operational complexities of building proprietary standalone systems. In the last year, Planet has signed over a half a billion dollars across three satellite services contracts, supporting the national security needs of Japan via JSAT and in collaboration with Germany. Planet is proud to partner closely with allied governments to deliver critical space-based and geospatial solutions.“Europe needs its own eyes, and Sweden is leading the way by rapidly securing its own, comprehensive space capability – helping achieve its own security objectives and assisting regional allies, like Ukraine, with timely, critical information,” said Will Marshall, Planet CEO and Co-Founder. “By leveraging Planet’s scaled production line and agile aerospace methodology, Sweden achieves both the speed and the long-term sovereignty they require, without compromise.”
