Planet Labs PBC (NYSE:PL) has announced the company’s high-resolution Pelican-2 satellite and 36 SuperDoves of Flock 4G were successfully launched to orbit on SpaceX’s Transporter-12 Rideshare mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California — the Planet team has successfully made contact with Pelican-2 and has started its commissioning process.
Pelican-2 joins Pelican-1 (a smallsat platform tech demonstration launched last year ) as part of Planet’s next-generation, high-resolution fleet, to support and expand its existing SkySat capabilities. Planet plans to launch additional Pelicans this year.
Pelican-2 is designed to provide up to 40 cm class resolution imagery across 6 multispectral bands optimized for cross-sensor analysis. Planet has collaborated with NVIDIA to equip Pelican-2 with the NVIDIA Jetson platform to power on-orbit computing—with the aim of vastly reducing the time between data capture and value for customers.
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