Planet Labs PBC Announces Real-Time Insights Technology Using NVIDIA Jetson Platform

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Planet Labs PBC (NYSE: PL), a leading provider of daily data and insights about Earth, today announced it is collaborating with NVIDIA on its onboard processing capabilities for its high-resolution Pelican™-2 satellite. Through this collaboration, Planet will leverage the NVIDIA Jetson edge AI platform for its next-generation high-resolution mission and fly the technology on its Pelican-2 satellite set to launch later this year.

NVIDIA GPU accelerated computing will power intelligent imaging and faster insights for customers. Leveraging recent advances in artificial intelligence, Planet expects this collaboration to support shorter time to value for customers across government and commercial markets.

“Robust datasets are what power AI, and Planet is fully embracing the latest advancements happening in this AI revolution, from enhancing our satellite technology to pulling insights from our imagery data at rapid speeds,” said Kiruthika Devaraj, VP of Avionics and Spacecraft at Planet. “This collaboration is about getting answers from orbit to our customers in near real-time. The suite of solutions that Planet can generate for our customers with our high-resolution optical sensor on Pelican is enhanced by NVIDIA Jetson and real-time connectivity. With the latest technology demonstrations launching on Pelican-2, our customers and partners will be able to access, process, and download imagery as well as real-time insights at a rapid pace and on low- and high-bandwidth connectivity based on their unique constraints.”

“Running compute on-orbit allows us to design new pipelines that can understand the data as it is being collected, without waiting for data download and delivery. Such on-orbit compute will enable many new (and important) capabilities, such as real-time tracking of events like forest fires, disasters, and other events of interest,” said Deepak Vasisht, Assistant Professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Planet will be one of the first to space-qualify and fly NVIDIA Jetson on an Earth observation satellite.

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 1000 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.