Planet Labs PBC releases images from first hyperspectral satellite...

02 Oct 2024

...and BAE Systems prototype payload integrated onto the International Space Station.

Planet Labs, a provider of daily data about Earth, has released the “first light” images from its Tanager-1 satellite. The first set of imagery is of Karachi, Pakistan, and was taken on September 19th, 2024, from an altitude of 522 km. Partners, such as Carbon Mapper, and Planet’s customers are expected to use the data to monitor and mitigate point-source methane and CO₂ emissions.

Planet also plans to make the hyperspectral data commercially available for a variety of uses, including defense and intelligence monitoring, biodiversity assessments, mineral mapping, and water quality assessments. Tanager-1 launched on Transporter-11 on August 16th, 2024. This is the second Planet satellite to leverage the Planet Smallsat platform and went through a one-month satellite bus commissioning process.

“We are pleased to have already progressed to first light activities. Leveraging our decade of operational experience, our teams are rapidly making progress towards production operations of this satellite,” said Mark Longanbach, Planet’s Senior Vice President of Missions.

The satellite is the first of a planned hyperspectral constellation, enabled by the Carbon Mapper Coalition, that combines Planet’s aerospace and smallsat bus technology with the imaging spectrometer design developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Tanager-1 can image all wavelengths between 400-2500 nm simultaneously and is expected to provide rich datacubes—images of the ground but with 420 colors (“spectral channels”)—that enable users to detect surface features, such as gas emissions, ground chemicals, and plant species.

In the released imagery, Planet presents a standard RGB image, a false-color near-infrared image, and false-color shortwave infrared images to showcase the broad wavelength range addressed by the satellite. These images showcase only 6 of the 400 total bands available to Tanager.

“Tanager first light is the biggest program milestone yet,” said Mark Keremedjiev, Planet’s Mission Director for the Tanager Hyperspectral Mission. “The image demonstrates Planet’s world-class imaging spectrometer and provides a tangible result to the years of investment and effort. It’s early days but we believe that first light is but a preview of amazing things to come.”

Planet plans to continue to build on the success of its Smallsat platform as Pelican-2 progresses towards launch readiness in the coming months. With this modular and extensible platform, Planet is applying its agile aerospace development philosophy to both of the Pelican and Tanager missions to drive continuous improvements in the products we offer our customers.

BAE Systems prototype payload integrated onto ISS

BAE Systems’ prototype payload features several different instruments and sub-systems, including an RF sounder to measure temperatures at different altitudes throughout the Earth’s atmosphere, and a dual band SWIR camera to demonstrate low-cost environmental monitoring capabilities.

The payload launched in collaboration with the International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory and Airbus U.S. Space & Defense, Inc., which supplied the hardware facility for the mission. The payload has arrived safely to the ISS as part of a NASA commercial resupply mission, where it was integrated onto the station with the help of astronauts onboard. It is functioning as planned.

The payload features several different instruments and sub-systems, including a radio frequency sounder that will measure temperatures at different altitudes throughout the Earth’s atmosphere, providing next-generation capabilities with applications in hurricane modeling and weather forecasting at a fraction of the size of existing systems.

“Our team was able to assemble, integrate, and test this payload in just eight months,” said Steve Smith, vice president of Engineering, Science & Analysis for BAE Systems Space & Mission Systems. “This effort highlights our ability to meet our customers’ need for affordable and rapid advancement of on-orbit technologies, designed for a myriad of functions.”

In addition to the payload’s scientific instruments, the mission will include Space & Mission Systems’ Linux-based software that features real-time data processing and containerized applications that can be changed on orbit. BAE Systems also collaborated with Microsoft Azure Space to demonstrate the jointly developed onboard mission data processing system and Seagate Federal to demonstrate onboard mass storage capabilities.

The mission is scheduled to last for one year. Once completed, the payload will be removed from the ISS and returned to Earth where BAE Systems engineers and scientists will analyze it to understand how it was impacted by the space environment.