Planet Labs

Satellite Description

Planet Labs is a commercial EO operator and data provider utilising small satellites and CubeSats (10 cm x 10 cm x 30 cm). It operates three constellations with different imaging capabilities that can be tasked to capture data in specified locations. These are PlanetScope (consisting of Doves and SuperDoves), RapidEye (decommissioned in 2020) and SkySat. Specific use cases for this data include building and road detection, automatic change detection and vessel detection. Planet Labs have built and deployed 450 satellites with more than 200 currently in orbit, capturing over 350 million km ² of imagery each day. PlanetScope launches began in 2014 and the first of the SkySat constellation (21 satellites) was launched in 2013.

Observation Scenario

PlanetScope:

• Scene size:

• • • DOVE-C: 24 x 8 km
  • • DOVE-R: 24 x 16 km
  • • SuperDOVE: 32.5 x 19.6 km

• Orbit: Sun-synchronous

• Inclination: 98°

• Altitude: 475 – 525 km

SkySat:

• Swath width: 5.5 – 8 km

• Orbit: Sun-synchronous, inclined, non-sun-synchronous

• Inclination:

• • • SkySat 1 – 15: 97°
  • • SkySat 16 – 21: 53°

• Altitude: 400 – 600 km

Sensor Characteristics

PlanetScope:

• DOVE-C: 3-band RGB or 4-band RGB and NIR

• DOVE-R: 3-band RGB or 4-band RGB and NIR

• SuperDOVE: 3-band RGB, 4-band RGB and NIR, or 8-band including coastal blue, two greens and a red-edge band

SkySat: RGB, NIR, panchromatic

Spatial Resolution

PlanetScope:

• • DOVE-C/R: 3.0 – 4.1 m
• • SuperDOVE: 3.7 – 4.2 m

SkySat: < 1 m

Temporal Resolution

PlanetScope: Daily

SkySat: 4 – 5 days

Data Products

PlanetScope: 

• • Basic Analytic:
  • • Calibrated, corrected, non-orthorectified TOA radiances
  • • Suitable for data science and user orthorectification
• • Analytic:
  • • Orthorectified, calibrated, corrected
  • • For data science and analysis
• • Visual:
  • • Orthorectified and colour-corrected
  • • Optimized for human-eye, simple inspection
• • Surface Reflectance:
  • • Orthorectified, radiometrically corrected
  • • For temporal analysis, monitoring

SkySat: SkySat products come in the form of scenes, collects (60 scenes) or video products (30 – 120 seconds).

The imagery products are:

• • Basic Analytic:
  • • Calibrated, corrected, non-orthorectified TOA radiances
  • • Suitable for data science and user orthorectification
• • Basic L1A Panchromatic:
  • • Uncalibrated, non-orthorectified, panchromatic
  • • For time-sensitive applications
  • • Basic Panchromatic:
  • • Calibrated, non-orthorectified, super-resolved, panchromatic
  • • Designed for wide spectral analysis
• • Ortho Analytic:
  • • Calibrated, orthorectified
  • • Suitable for analysis requiring accurate geolocation
• • Ortho Analytic Surface Reflectance:
  • • Surface reflectance corrected for variations in molecular and aerosol content with altitude
• • Ortho Panchromatic:
  • • Calibrated, orthorectified, super-resolved TOA radiances
  • • Designed for wide spectral analysis
• • Ortho Visual:
  • • Corrected, orthorectified, super-resolved RBG imagery
  • • Suitable for direct visual inspection
• • Ortho Pansharpened:
  • • Uncalibrated, orthorectified, super-resolved
  • • Suitable for applications requiring high-resolution multispectral data

The video products are:

• • Video File
  • • MP4 files produced with Basic L1A Panchromatic products
• • Video Frames
  • • All frames used to create Video File product

Archive Availability

Period:

• • PlanetScope: 2014 – present
• • SkySat: 2016 – present

Sources:

• • Planet Labs data is commercial and therefore not freely available. For access via Sentinel Hub see: PlanetScope and SkySat
• • Data may also be accessed via ESA for research purposes following submission of a proposal. See: PlanetScope and SkySat

Data Continuity

In August 2024, Planet Labs successfully its first hyperspectral satellite, Tanager-1, along with 36 more SuperDoves. For further information on PlanetScope see here. For further information on SkySat see here.