Planet Labs, a leading provider of daily data and insights about change on Earth, released first light images from its latest Pelican launch, including the Swedish Armed Forces (SwAF)’s first ever sovereign satellite. Planet launched these three Pelican spacecraft to orbit aboard the CAS500-2 rideshare mission with SpaceX from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on May 3, 2026.
Planet received high-resolution first light imagery from the Pelican satellites within days of their May 3 launch. Each satellite captured imagery from around the world, including Gotland, Sweden, on May 7, 2026, from an altitude of 515 km; Taiyuan, in Shanxi, China, on May 5, 2026, from an altitude of 512 km; and Ambursu, Nigeria, on May 11, 2026, from an altitude of 510 km. As the spacecraft complete the instrument calibration process and reach their final operational orbits, image quality is expected to further improve.
“Launching three more Pelicans gives us more capacity and a higher revisit rate for our customers. We’re pleased to be launching these at pace, and it’s always exciting to see first light imagery so swiftly after launch!” said Will Marshall, Co-Founder and CEO of Planet Labs. “Just months after announcing our agreement with Sweden in January, we completed manufacturing, launched, and rapidly brought the country’s very first satellite online. As we continue to scale the Pelican constellation, we’re showing how Planet can move quickly to help our partners around the world achieve sovereign, AI-enabled space capabilities.”
“Launching Sweden’s first satellite is a major milestone, and we’re grateful to Planet for helping extend the Swedish Armed Forces’ capabilities into the space domain,” said Anders Sundeman, Rear Admiral and Head of Space at the Swedish Armed Forces. “Sweden will now have its own sovereign means of identifying and analyzing threats globally – far ahead of our initial 2030 goal. We have a great cooperation with Planet on this critical work and look forward to more launches to come.”
With this most recent launch, there are now nine AI-enabled, high resolution Pelican satellites on orbit. This first generation of Pelican satellites are built to capture 50 cm class resolution imagery across six multispectral bands, which are optimized for seamless cross-sensor analysis. Planet plans to launch additional Pelican satellites in 2026.
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