Planet's PlanetScope Dove satellite constellation is designed to observe Earth. By using several small satellites, CubeSats, the constellation produces high resolution images of Earth — per pixel. The flock collects images from latitudes that are within 52 degrees of Earth's equator. A large portion of the world's agricultural regions and population lie within the area imaged by the flock.
Dove Planet's Dove satellites are
CubeSats that weigh (1000 times lower than other commercial imaging satellites), in length, width and height, orbit at a height of about and provide imagery with a resolution of and envisaged environmental, humanitarian, and business applications. •
Flock 1c, consisting of 11 Dove satellites, was successfully launched on 19 June 2014 with a
Dnepr rocket on a record-breaking launch that carried to orbit the largest number of satellites up to that time, 37. •
Flock 1b, consisting of 28 Dove satellites, was successfully launched to the
ISS on 13 July 2014 with the
Cygnus Orb-2 cargo mission. All of those satellites have been deployed from the ISS but 6, that have been returned to Earth with the
SpaceX CRS-5 mission 212 days later. •
Flock 1d, consisting of 26 Dove satellites, was supposed to be carried to the ISS with the
Cygnus Orb-3 cargo mission but was lost due the
Antares rocket exploding seconds after liftoff. •
Flock 1d', consisting of 2 Dove satellites, was launched successfully as a replacement of the lost
Flock 1d group on 10 January 2015 with the
SpaceX CRS-5 cargo mission and was later deployed from the ISS on 3 March 2015. and was later deployed from the ISS between the 13 and the 16 July 2015. •
Flock 2b, consisting of 14 Dove satellites, was successfully launched on 19 August 2015 with the
HTV-5 cargo mission and all but two satellites of the group has been deployed from the ISS, starting from 15 September 2015. and was deployed from the ISS between 17 May and 1 June 2016. and was deployed from the ISS between 17 May and 14 September 2016.
Flock 3p was the largest satellite fleet ever launched. •
Flock 2k, consisting of 48 Dove satellites, launched to 485 km altitude orbit on 14 July 2017 aboard
Soyuz-2.1a. •
Flock 3m, consisting of 4 Dove satellites, was launched on 31 October 2017 on a
Minotaur C rocket, along with six of Planet's
SkySat satellites. •
Flock 3p', consisting of 4 Dove satellites, was launched in India
ISRO's
PSLV-C40 mission on 12 January 2018. Decayed between 18 March and 17 August 2023. • A single Dove satellite nicknamed
Dove Pioneer was launched on 21 January 2018 onboard the first successful flight (and second overall) of
Rocket Lab Electron rocket. Decayed on 22 September 2019. •
Flock 3r, consisting of 16 Dove satellites, was successfully launched on 29 November 2018 with the
PSLV-C43 mission. •
Flock 3s, consisting of 3 satellites, was successfully launched on 3 December 2018 to a 575 km altitude orbit aboard a
SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from
Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. •
Flock 3k, consisting of 12 Dove satellites, was successfully launched on 27 December 2018. The flock was launched on a Soyuz Rocket from the
Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia into a
sun-synchronous orbit. •
Flock 4a, launched 1 April 2019, consisting of 20 SuperDoves, was the first flock including satellites with improved imaging technology. The flock was delivered to 504 km sun-synchronous orbit on
ISRO's
PSLV-C45 rocket. •
Flock 4p, consisting of 12 SuperDoves with multiple spectral bands and other improvements, was launched at 03:58 UTC on 27 November 2019 by PSLV C47 into a
sun-synchronous orbit. •
Flock 4e, consisting of 5 SuperDoves, was planned to be launched into a 500 km
SSO orbit onboard
Electron on 4 July 2020. However, due to a failure during the second stage burn, the payloads failed to reach orbit. •
Flock-4v, consisting of 26 SuperDoves, was successfully launched on 3 September 2020 with a
Vega rocket as part of the Small Satellites Mission Service Proof of Concept (SSMS PoC) mission. •
Flock 4e', consisting of 9 SuperDoves, was successfully launched on Rocket Labs Electron Rocket on 28 October 28 2020. •
Flock 4s, consisting of 48 SuperDoves, was successfully launched on SpaceX's Transporter-1 mission. This record-breaking launch successfully deployed 143 satellites - the most ever on a single mission. •
Flock 4y, consisting of 36 SuperDoves, was successfully launched on SpaceX's Transporter-6 mission on 3 January 2023. •
Flock 4q, consisting of 36 SuperDoves, was successfully launched on SpaceX's Transporter-9 mission on 11 November 2023. •
Flock 4be, consisting of 36 SuperDoves, was successfully launched on SpaceX's Transporter-11 mission on 16 August 2024. • Flock 4g, consisting of 36 SuperDoves, was successfully launched on SpaceX's Transporter-12 mission on 14 January 2025.
RapidEye RapidEye was a five-satellite constellation producing resolution imagery that Planet acquired from the German company BlackBridge. The satellites were built by
Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) of
Guildford, subcontracted by
MacDonald Dettwiler (MDA) of Richmond, Canada. Each satellite was based on an evolution of the flight-proven
SSTL-150 bus, measuring less than and weighing (bus + payload) each. They were launched on 29 August 2008 on a
Dnepr rocket from
Baikonur cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan. Each of RapidEye's five satellites contained identical Jena-Optronik Spaceborne Scanner JSS 56
multi-spectral pushbroom sensor imagers. The five satellites traveled on the same orbital plane (at an altitude of 630 km), and together were capable of collecting over of resolution, 5-band color imagery every day. They collected data in the Blue (440–510 nm), Green (520–590 nm), Red (630–690 nm), Red-Edge (690–730 nm) and
Near-Infrared (760–880 nm). The RapidEye constellation was officially retired in April 2020.
SkySat SkySat is a constellation of sub-metre resolution
Earth observation satellites that provide imagery, high-definition video and analytics services. from Google in 2017. The SkySat satellites are based on using inexpensive automotive grade electronics and fast commercially available processors, but scaled up to approximately the size of a
minifridge. The satellites are approximately long, compared to approximately for a 3U CubeSat, and weigh . and the second, SkySat-2, launched on a
Soyuz-2/Fregat rocket from Baikonur, Kazakhstan on 8 July 2014. Four more SkySat units were launched on 16 September 2016, by the
Vega rocket's seventh flight from
Kourou, and six more SkySat satellites, along with four Dove CubeSats, were launched on a
Minotaur-C rocket from
Vandenberg Air Force Base on 31 October 2017. In 2020, Planet lowered their constellation of 15 SkySats from an altitude of 500 kilometers to 450 kilometers to improve the resolution of orthorectified imagery from 80 centimeters to 50 centimeters per pixel. On June 13, 2020,
SpaceX's
Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched SkySats 16, 17 and 18 along with a batch of its
Starlink communications satellites. SkySats 19, 20 and 21 were launched on August 18, 2020 on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. This completed the SkySat fleet of 21 high-resolution satellites. When launched, the SkySat constellation was orbiting at an altitude of and has a multispectral, panchromatic, and video sensor. It has a spatial resolution of 0.9 metres in its 400–900 nm panchromatic band, making it the smallest satellite to be put in orbit capable of such high resolution imagery. The multispectral sensor collects data in blue (450–515 nm), green (515–595 nm), red (605–695 nm), and near-infrared (740–900 nm) bands, all at 2 metre resolution.
Pelican The Pelican constellation is a set of Earth observation satellites designed to succeed the SkySat constellation. The spacecraft are based on a modular bus shared with the Tanager hyperspectral satellites and utilize Planet's next generation of imaging sensors. The constellation is designed for a revisit rate of up to 10 times per day globally and up to 30 times per day at mid-latitudes. The first technology demonstrator, Pelican-1, launched on 11 November 2023 on the SpaceX Transporter-9 mission. Deployment of the operational constellation began in 2025: •
Pelican-2 launched on 14 January 2025 on SpaceX’s Transporter-12 mission. Planet released first light imagery from the satellite in March 2025. •
Pelican-3 and
Pelican-4 launched on 26 August 2025. The satellites utilize the
NVIDIA Jetson platform for on-orbit
edge computing, designed to process data before downlink to reduce latency. In January 2025, Planet signed a $230 million agreement with
SKY Perfect JSAT (JSAT) to build and operate ten Pelican satellites owned by JSAT. In July 2025, Planet announced a €240 million contract funded by the German government for dedicated capacity and direct downlink services on the Pelican constellation. == See also ==