Planet Labs Germany, a provider of daily data and insights about Earth, announced that they have signed a three year contract with the German Space Agency at German Aerospace Center ( DLR ). Through this multi-year contract, Planet will provide a series of Earth observation data products and services to the German Space Agency at DLR and to German researchers to help them further advance research and development.
Focused on delivering missions and projects with scientific excellence, the German Space Agency will leverage Planet satellite data for key research initiatives, oriented around significant national and global challenges. This contract with Planet provides access to data licenses for German researchers and research projects in addition to innovative start-up companies working on internal research. As European policies and investments have worked to transform the remote sensing industry, Planet has also continued to prioritize European partnerships with both government entities and commercial businesses, aiming to enable novel innovation and development across the continent.
“Europe has been leading the way in investment and innovation in the Earth observation industry, and we are thrilled to continue working directly with the German Space Agency to further accelerate this momentum,” said Dr. Marcus Apel, Planet’s Director Public Sector Business in D-A-CH. “With Planet’s EU headquarters located in Berlin, we have built a close relationship with Germany’s government and businesses and look forward to supporting the myriad of research projects at DLR and researchers in Germany.”
Through this contract, researchers will access all of Planet’s PlanetScope products, including their monitoring capabilities offering near-daily imagery of all of Earth landmass at nearly 3m resolution and their deep archive of PlanetScope data going back as far as 2016. The German Space Agency will also receive Planet’s entire archive of RapidEye imagery over Germany, which consists of imagery at 5m resolution since 2009.
“Our research projects and missions are advancing how we understand climate, security, and our global economy,” said Godela Roßner, Head of Earth Observation Department at the German Space Agency at DLR. “With access to PlanetScope and RapidEye satellite data, we give scientists the opportunity to develop new innovative methods and applications to derive better insights of our planet Earth with enhanced data analysis capacities and timely data inputs.”
With a deep archive of satellite imagery users can conduct robust scientific analyses and engage in broad area management, evaluating environmental change across time and delivering data-informed reports and recommendations for industry and policy initiatives. With the near-daily monitoring capabilities, users can also conduct swift research on rapidly changing ecosystems, deriving time-sensitive insights regarding security and climate change. The German Space Agency also aims to advance education in Germany by leveraging these satellite datasets in classrooms to teach scientific research methods.
Planet satellite data has been leveraged by the German Space Agency for over a decade with the agency first integrating Planet data into their research programs as early as 2009 through the RapidEye Science Archive. Through this new multi-year contract, Planet will not only be providing data access, but also development support for the German Space Agency’s Earth observation data platform (EO-Lab), integrating Planet data into the system and offering advanced services.
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