SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 25, 2026--
Planet Labs PBC (NYSE: PL), a leading provider of daily data and insights about change on Earth, today announced that Pelican-12, an updated second generation (Gen 2) high resolution Pelican™, has arrived at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida ahead of its launch aboard the upcoming Bandwagon-5 rideshare mission with SpaceX.
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Pelican-12 leverages key learnings from Pelican-11, which launched in July. Shipping less than three months later with updates to the payload and communication systems, Pelican-12 demonstrates Planet's end-to-end agile engineering. Like its predecessors, Pelican-12 will allow Planet to test and validate new technologies ahead of integration on future Planet spacecraft.
Planet is working to test commercial data relay services onboard its constellations to minimize latency in its delivery of data to customers. This Pelican satellite is designed to support intersatellite communications using a steerable antenna, and aims to enable two-way communications at higher data rates than the 1 Mbps achieved in an initial demonstration in 2025.
While Planet’s first generation (Gen 1) Pelicans are designed to capture 50 cm class imagery, Gen 2 Pelicans are designed to provide up to 30 cm class imagery - further improving use cases such as agricultural monitoring, critical infrastructure management, and natural disaster response. Pelican-12 is also equipped with the NVIDIA Jetson platform to accelerate on-orbit edge compute, a capability Planet demonstrated by running AI-driven, near real-time object detection onboard Pelican-4. By utilizing its onboard NVIDIA Jetson module, Pelican-12 will help Planet explore new ways to close the latency gap with real-time insights, reduce downlink costs, and continue building towards a future of planetary-scale Earth intelligence.
Pelican-12 will be the fifth Pelican to launch in 2026, showing the rapid expansion of this next-generation, high-resolution constellation. Planet is continuing to scale its Pelican production capacity, with manufacturing at its expanded Berlin facility set to begin this year. Planet plans to launch additional Pelican spacecraft in 2027 to continue to meet growing customer demand for Planet’s high-resolution data products and Satellite Services offerings.
To learn more about Planet’s Pelican constellations and capabilities, visit https://www.planet.com/constellations/pelican/.
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 commercial Earth observation fleet of imaging satellites. Planet provides mission-critical data, advanced insights, and software solutions to 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 X, LinkedIn, or tune in to HBO’s ‘Wild Wild Space’.
Forward-looking Statements
Certain statements contained in this press release are “forward-looking statements” about Planet within the meaning of the securities laws, including statements about the expansion of the high resolution capacity of Planet’s fleet, the delivery of such capacity to Planet customers, 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. Such statements, which are not of historical fact, involve estimates, assumptions, judgments and uncertainties. There are a number of factors that could cause actual results or outcomes to differ materially from those addressed in the forward-looking statements, including risks related to the macroeconomic environment. Such factors are detailed in Planet’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. Planet does not undertake an obligation to update its forward-looking statements to reflect future events, except as required by applicable law.
Pelican-12 photographed at Planet Labs' San Francisco headquarters ahead of its departure to the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
