NASA JPL Imaging Spectrometer Ready for Tanager 1 Integration

NASA JPL Imaging Spectrometer Ready for Tanager 1 Integration
by Staff Writers
San Francisco CA (SPX) Sep 15, 2023

Planet Labs PBC (NYSE: PL) has announced that an imaging spectrometer, developed by NASA JPL, has been handed off to its team for integration onto its Tanager 1 hyperspectral satellite. This marks a major milestone for the Carbon Mapper Coalition, a public-private partnership announced in 2021, with the aim of gaining a deeper understanding of global methane and carbon dioxide emissions.

As part of this coalition, Planet is actively building and launching two hyperspectral satellites, Tanager 1 and Tanager 2, with the first expected to be ready to launch in 2024. This exquisite instrument will act as the "eye" of the satellite, allowing the Coalition to detect, pinpoint, and quantify point source emissions of methane and carbon dioxide.

In addition to the progress being made on Tanager, Planet is continuing to push its Pelican program forward, with the first Tech Demo, TD1, now fully built and expected to be ready for launch later this year.

TD1 is a true R and D effort and this marks an important step for not only Pelican, but also the Tanager satellite, as the two constellations share a common platform that holds each payload's scientific instruments, known as the satellite bus. TD1's primary mission will be to test the satellite platform and operational systems on-orbit. The learnings from TD1 will be integrated in Planet's upcoming Tanager satellite builds.

As Planet gears up to launch Tanager 1 and 2, the company is engaging closely with users in its Early Access Program (EAP) to understand how hyperspectral data will deliver the greatest value to these organizations. This program, which leverages synthetic data developed in partnership with Rendered.ai, will allow Planet to generate well-rounded market feedback for our satellite program and unearth innovative applications and use cases for our future hyperspectral data.

Our EAP cohort is substantial, spanning across companies in agriculture, energy, mining, and defense, and has deepened Planet's understanding of the market demand for hyperspectral data. The program is helping the company to further refine its product development process and speed the time-to-value of its data. Planet will continue working with its EAP partners to iterate on its designs and data pipeline to ensure a seamless integration of its upcoming hyperspectral data that will change the way users view and measure change on our planet.

To learn more about the instrument built by NASA JPL, and some of the other major achievements made across the Carbon Mapper Coalition to date, read the joint blog post written by Carbon Mapper and NASA JPL here.