Planet Labs PBC turns satellite imagery into tools for monitoring changes on Earth. Based in San Francisco, United States, the company combines satellite design, in-orbit operations and data distribution through software platforms. Its positioning rests on repeated imaging: regularly observing the same areas to detect changes, rather than merely providing a one-off snapshot. Its website, planet.com, presents its imagery and analytics offerings.
From NASA engineers to financial markets
Planet was founded in 2010 by Will Marshall, Robbie Schingler and Chris Boshuizen, three NASA alumni. Their approach involves developing small satellites, mass-produced and regularly replaced, drawing on advances in electronics. The first spacecraft in the Dove family paved the way for a constellation designed to photograph Earth’s land areas daily.
The company then expanded its capabilities through acquisitions. It acquired BlackBridge, the operator of the RapidEye constellation, in 2015, followed by Terra Bella and its SkySat satellites from Google in 2017. These transactions expanded its archives and its range of higher-resolution imagery. In December 2021, Planet went public on the New York Stock Exchange following a merger with a publicly listed acquisition company. Its status as a “public benefit corporation” embeds a public-interest mission in its legal framework, without making it a nonprofit organization.
From constellations to actionable data
The PlanetScope offering relies on a fleet of small satellites, including SuperDoves, to provide frequent coverage of Earth’s land surfaces. SkySat provides more detailed observation of targeted areas. This complementary approach makes it possible to spot changes across a large region, then examine specific sites more closely. However, cloud cover and acquisition conditions remain constraints on optical imagery.
Planet sells access to its imagery, archives and derived products, notably through subscriptions. Its application programming interfaces facilitate their integration into customers’ information systems. Uses include monitoring crops, deforestation and infrastructure changes, disaster response and geospatial intelligence. The value sought lies as much in the depth of the time series as in the quality of any single image: comparing observations helps document a trend or trigger an alert.
What next?
The Pelican program, for high-resolution imagery, and Tanager, for hyperspectral observation, are intended to expand Planet’s capabilities. Hyperspectral imaging opens up applications in particular for characterizing materials and detecting certain gases, in connection with the Carbon Mapper initiative. The commercial challenge remains to turn these technical capabilities into recurring, profitable services. Facing competition from other operators and freely available public data, Planet must demonstrate the operational value of its observation frequency, archives and analytics tools.