California Satellite Data Purchase Contract Awarded
Planet is a Subcontractor for the $95 Million Award
The California Air Resource Board’s (CARB) Satellite Data Purchase Program (SDPP) has selected Planet as the primary contractor for a $95 million multi-year contract. The Earth Observation company has also released financial results for the period ending January 31.
“Last year was an exciting and transitional year for Planet."
Will Marshall, Planet
The full contract was awarded to Carbon Mapper with Planet as a subcontractor to provide the state of California with methane data built upon Tanager hyperspectral collections, and other Planet data products. SDPP will primarily utilize Planet data to identify and track methane emissions in California and worldwide.
SDPP represents a cost-effective and powerful coalition between California, Carbon Mapper, Planet, and philanthropic partners. The partnership brings together cutting-edge commercial technology, government-led R&D, and smart policy making to deliver an affordable and advanced solution to taxpayers and commercial markets. This initiative also helps sectors from oil and gas to agriculture to become more efficient and waste less, showcasing the partnership's commitment to both economic and environmental benefits.
Tanager-1 was launched in August 2024 and Planet plans to launch Tanager 2, 3 and 4, growing its hyperspectral constellation to four satellites. Following Pelican-1’s launch in November 2023, Tanager-1 is the second Planet satellite to successfully integrate the company’s Smallsat platform, which utilizes a vertically-integrated satellite bus and Planet’s global mission control network.
The Tanager smallsat-powered constellation is intended to provide some of the most comprehensive and up-to-date hyperspectral data, which is critical for a diverse set of customers across applications like detecting methane and carbon emissions, defense and intelligence monitoring, agriculture, biodiversity, and water quality assessments. By providing high-frequency, global satellite imagery and multi-spectral data, Planet provides a critical layer of information that improves timely situational awareness, enabling early threat detection, better resource management, and more informed decision-making.
Meanwhile, the Earth Observation company last week announced financial results for the period ended January 31, 2025.
“Last year was an exciting and transitional year for Planet. We introduced a new industry-aligned go-to-market structure and began to shift towards selling AI-enabled solutions. We took a major step forward in the satellite services market and signed a $230 million contract with our long-term partner in Japan, JSAT. We launched over 70 satellites, including our first Tanager hyperspectral satellite and our second Pelican high resolution satellite, both of which are performing well in orbit,” said Will Marshall, Planet’s Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Chairperson. “Looking ahead, we are focused on driving growth in our core markets with solutions, and see a clear path to at least double our revenue growth rate in FY’27 compared to FY’26, supported by the significant increase in our backlog during Q4. Given the extraordinary pace of innovation, we expect AI to be our strategic focus this coming year, as we leverage its potential to accelerate solutions and increase accessibility to our powerful data.”
“We delivered our first quarter of Adjusted EBITDA profitability in the Company’s history and saw further improvement in the fundamentals of the business, as evident in the year-over-year and sequential improvement in margins," said Ashley Johnson, Planet’s President and Chief Financial Officer. "We continue to invest in our space systems capabilities as we build out our next generation fleets and scale our operations to meet the growing demand we see for satellite services. We are also investing in our platform and solutions, particularly in areas where AI can help speed customer time to value and increase adoption.” Ms. Johnson continued, “Our balance sheet remains strong with approximately $222.1 million of cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments as of the end of the quarter, and we believe we have line of sight to cross over to positive cash flow in the next 24 months.”