Planet’s Pelican Tech Demonstration Satellite Ready for Launch
October 10 2023 - 12:20PM
Business Wire
Planet Labs PBC (NYSE: PL), a leading provider of daily data and
insights about Earth, today announced that its Pelican tech
demonstration satellite, Pelican-1, along with 36 SuperDoves, have
arrived at Vandenberg Space Force Base in preparation for launch
next month. Pelican-1, designed and manufactured by Planet, is the
first tech demonstration of Planet’s next-generation,
high-resolution fleet, which is expected to replenish and improve
upon Planet’s existing high-resolution systems in orbit today. The
36 SuperDoves, Planet’s Flock 4q, will contribute to Planet’s daily
monitoring PlanetScope mission.
Pelican-1 is a technology demonstration, built to test Pelican’s
integrated design and Planet’s common bus platform. This common bus
platform, designed and built by Planet, will also host the
Company’s future hyperspectral Tanager mission. Planet launches
tech demonstrations across all of its new satellite fleets in order
to prove out next-generation systems, test its latest technology,
and learn from its performance, improving the scalability of its
systems along the way. Pelican-1 is not expected to produce
commercial data, but rather obtain critical information and
learnings needed to iterate the Pelican design and rapidly scale to
a fleet using Planet’s agile aerospace approach. When fully
operational, the Pelican constellation is planned to improve upon
every dimension of Planet’s existing high-resolution SkySat
constellation - faster acquisition and delivery of data, better
spatial resolution to see finer details, higher revisit to catch
fleeting events, and more ways to combine insights with other
analytics and sensors.
The 36 SuperDoves launching will contribute to Planet’s flagship
daily, global monitoring mission. This data is used by hundreds of
customers in defense, civil government, and commercial markets to
take informed action, and better contextualize events they’re
seeing on the ground today. Planet’s daily scan and deep archive of
data for every point on Earth is unique within the industry and
provides customers with a continuous and complete view of their
areas of interest. Further, the archive acts as a rich training
ground for predictive machine learning and advanced artificial
intelligence models, accelerating users’ ability to draw insights
from the terabytes of data collected by Planet each day.
“The launch of our first Pelican tech demonstration marks an
exciting milestone for us,” said Will Marshall, co-founder and CEO
of Planet. “This new spacecraft bus is an exquisite system that
will underpin both our Pelican and Tanager fleets and we can’t wait
to learn and iterate in our agile aerospace model. The 36
SuperDoves also launching are not to be overlooked. They will join
the flock we have in-orbit today, which remains the largest earth
imaging fleet, providing our unique daily scan that is helping to
unlock new markets.”
Planet is committed to delivering best-in-class data and
services to its customers and expects this launch of Pelican-1 and
36 SuperDoves will help further the company’s mission of making
change visible, accessible, and actionable. As the launch window
nears, Planet, alongside its launch partner, will be sharing more
details. Stay tuned.
About Planet Labs PBC
Planet is a leading provider of global, daily satellite imagery
and geospatial solutions. Planet is driven by a mission to image
the world every day, and make change visible, accessible and
actionable. Founded in 2010 by three NASA scientists, Planet
designs, builds, and operates the largest Earth observation fleet
of imaging satellites. Planet provides mission-critical data,
advanced insights, and software solutions to over 900 customers,
comprising the world’s leading agriculture, forestry, intelligence,
education and finance companies and government agencies, enabling
users to simply and effectively derive unique value from satellite
imagery. Planet is a public benefit corporation listed on the New
York Stock Exchange as PL. To learn more visit www.planet.com and
follow us on Twitter.
Forward-looking Statements
Except for the historical information contained herein, the
matters set forth in this press release are forward-looking
statements within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of
the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including,
but not limited to, the Company’s ability to successfully design,
build, launch and deploy, operate and market new products and
satellites and the Company’s ability to realize any of the
potential benefits from product and satellite launches, either as
designed, within the expected time frame, in a cost-effective
manner, or at all. Forward-looking statements are based on the
Company’s management’s beliefs, as well as assumptions made by, and
information currently available to them. Because such statements
are based on expectations as to future events and results and are
not statements of fact, actual results may differ materially from
those projected. Factors which may cause actual results to differ
materially from current expectations include, but are not limited
to: the Company’s ability to obtain and maintain required licenses
and approvals from regulatory agencies, such as the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC), in a timely fashion, or at all;
whether the Company will be able to successfully build, launch and
deploy or operate its satellites, including new satellites either
as designed, in a timely fashion or at all; the Company’s ability
to develop and release product and service enhancements to respond
to rapid technological change, or to develop new designs and
technologies for its satellites, in a timely and cost-effective
manner; whether the Company will be able to continue to invest in
scaling its sales organization, expanding its software engineering
(including its ability to integrate new satellite capabilities) and
marketing capabilities; whether the Company will be able to
accurately predict and capture market opportunity; whether current
customers or prospective customers adopt the Company’s platform or
new products; the Company’s ability realize any of the potential
benefits from new products and satellites, as well as strategic
partnerships and customer collaborations; and the risk factors and
other disclosures about the Company and its business included in
the Company's periodic reports, proxy statements, and other
disclosure materials filed from time to time with the Securities
and Exchange Commission (SEC) which are available online at
www.sec.gov, and on the Company's website at www.planet.com. All
forward-looking statements reflect the Company’s beliefs and
assumptions only as of the date such statements are made. The
Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking
statements to reflect future events or circumstances.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231010276673/en/
Planet Press Sarah Bates comms@planet.com
Planet Investor Relations Chris Genualdi, Cleo Palmer-Poroner
ir@planet.com
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