Planet Labs, a leading provider of daily data and insights about change on Earth, announced the successful launch of three additional Pelican satellites, one of which is the first satellite to orbit as part of the recently announced satellite services agreement with the Swedish Armed Forces (SwAF). The spacecraft were launched to orbit aboard the CAS500-2 rideshare mission with SpaceX from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Planet has begun the commissioning process for the three satellites after successfully making initial contact.
The launch of the SwAF Pelican marks a milestone in agile aerospace, with Planet delivering a sovereign orbital capability just over four months after the contract was signed. This mission transitions Sweden into an operational space power, providing the high-resolution, global monitoring necessary to detect threats in strategic regions like the Arctic. By reaching orbit years ahead of their original 2030 goal, the Swedish Armed Forces will be able to provide critical intelligence that strengthens both their national security and NATO’s collective situational awareness.
These advanced, AI-enabled Pelican satellites are the first to launch in 2026, building on the successful launches that brought five Pelicans to orbit in 2025. Each of these satellites is equipped with NVIDIA’s Jetson AI platform to facilitate on-orbit edge computing, which Planet has recently leveraged for successful AI-driven, near real-time object detection onboard Pelican-4.
As first generation (Gen 1) Pelicans, these spacecraft are built to capture 50 cm class resolution imagery across six multispectral bands, which are optimised for seamless cross-sensor analysis. Once commissioning is complete, they will operate alongside the existing Pelican Gen 1 fleet to support the delivery of the company's 50 cm class high-resolution tasking solutions.
Planet is continuing to scale its Pelican manufacturing capacity to meet the growing, global customer demand for high-resolution data and sovereign satellite ownership. Planet’s expanding Pelican fleet is designed to provide users with the rapid, crisp imagery needed to inform mission-critical decisions in near real-time, particularly through leading solutions like Planet’s Global Monitoring Service (GMS). Planet is also continuing to deliver on and develop a strong pipeline for its satellite services contracts, supplying nations with a proven means of expanding their space capabilities with advanced, sovereignly-owned Pelican satellites. Planet plans to continue to meet the rapidly growing need for its high-resolution monitoring solutions by launching additional Gen 1 and the first Gen 2 Pelican satellites later in 2026, which are designed to provide up to 30 cm class resolution.
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