Planet Labs PBC, a leading provider of daily data and insights about change on Earth, released first light images from its Pelican-3 satellite of Turin, Italy. It was taken on September 5, 2025, from an altitude of 458 km. Image quality is expected to improve as the spacecraft completes the instrument calibration process and reaches its final operational orbits. Pelican-3 and Pelican-4 launched on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 NAOS mission on August 26, 2025.
“We’re thrilled to be sharing our Pelican-3 first light imagery, captured just days after these satellites were launched. These spacecraft are already demonstrating and reinforcing the incredible agility of the expanding Pelican constellation,” said Will Marshall, Co-Founder and CEO of Planet. “Our Pelican satellites offer state-of-the-art capabilities, from high resolution to rapid revisits to AI processing at the edge, driven by the NVIDIA Jetson platform on board. With a fully ramped Pelican production line, we’re building and launching Pelicans at our fastest pace yet.”
Pelican-3 and Pelican-4 join Pelican-2 and Pelican-1 (a smallsat platform tech demonstration launched in 2023) as part of Planet’s growing next-generation, high-resolution constellation. This first generation of Pelican satellites provides high-resolution imagery across 6 multispectral bands that are optimized for cross-sensor analysis. These Pelicans are designed to provide up to 40 cm class resolution imagery and have NVIDIA Jetson AI chips on board for on-orbit computing at the edge. Planet expects its next generation of Pelican satellites, launching beginning next year, to reach 30 cm imagery.
“Capturing first light images this quickly is a tremendous achievement for the Pelican team, and demonstrates the progress we’ve made in reducing our time to making our spacecraft operational,” said Brian Lewis, Mission Director, Pelican. “Our growing Pelican fleet scales up our ability to rapidly provide customers with the critical imagery they need to make informed decisions at the pace of global change.”
Click here to know more about Planet Labs' Pelican Constellation
