Planet Labs Extends NASA Agreement, Secures $18.5M in Funding Through 2024

Planet Labs PBC, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, announced on Friday the extension of its Blanket Purchase Agreement with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This agreement, part of the Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program, includes multiple orders totaling $18.5 million in funding through 2024.

Shares of Planet Labs experienced an increase following the announcement.

The CSDA program allows approved civilian federally funded researchers and employees from federal civilian agencies to access Planet’s extensive archive of 50 petabytes of PlanetScope imagery for scientific and Earth science applications. Since the program’s launch in 2018, a multitude of researchers have leveraged Planet satellite data for investigations into various topics, including climate change, biodiversity loss, and disaster response.

Will Marshall, co-founder and CEO of Planet, expressed pride in their collaboration with NASA and the broader research community. He underscored how Planet’s data has contributed to understanding different aspects of Earth’s systems, ranging from tidal marshes in Georgia to glacier calving in Greenland and the rich biodiversity of Borneo’s rainforests.

The partnership with NASA has been ongoing for over five years, supporting scientific researchers from more than 32 different federal government agencies. Last year alone, 41 presentations at the Fall American Geophysical Union meeting, the largest annual gathering of geoscientists, utilized Planet’s data through the CSDA program.

Victoria Hill from Old Dominion’s Department of Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences noted the transformative impact of the program on their ability to map coastal environments. She described how they produced monthly maps of submerged aquatic vegetation in the Chesapeake Bay, uncovering significant seasonal changes that traditional airplane-based mapping could not detect.

Founded in 2010 by three NASA scientists, Planet Labs PBC is a top provider of global, daily satellite imagery and geospatial solutions. The company operates the largest fleet of Earth observation satellites and serves over 900 customers worldwide, including major players in agriculture, forestry, intelligence, education, finance, and various government agencies.