Pelican 1, ..., x

Pelican [Planet]

Pelican is a commercial Earth observation satellite constellation developed by Planet Labs (USA) as the successor to the SkySat system.

The mission of Pelican is to provide very high-resolution optical imagery of Earth’s surface with significantly improved revisit rates compared to earlier commercial constellations. The system is intended to support applications including agriculture, forestry, urban planning, and emergency management, where frequent and detailed imaging is critical. With enhanced temporal resolution, Pelican is designed to enable near-real-time monitoring of dynamic events and infrastructure.

The satellites are manufactured by Planet Labs and are based on the company’s standardized SmallSat platform. Each spacecraft carries a single payload, the Pelican Imager, an optical instrument optimized for high-resolution land imaging. The imager is a pushbroom radiometer operating across five spectral bands in the visible to near-infrared range, enabling both high spatial detail and multispectral analysis capabilities.

Each Pelican satellite has approximate dimensions of 0.56 m × 0.56 m × 0.40 m and a mass of about 120 kg, with a payload capacity of 75 kg. The spacecraft is equipped with two solar panels providing approximately 600 W of power generation and a battery storage capacity of 650 Wh. The system is designed to achieve a ground sampling distance of up to 0.3 m. All satellites operate in sun-synchronous orbits at an altitude of approximately 475 km.

The Pelican constellation is planned to replace and expand upon the existing fleet of 19 SkySat satellites in orbit, with deployments expected in multiple launches as the system is built out to full operational capacity.

Pelican 8 is the first satellite to orbit as part of the recently-announced satellite services agreement with the Swedish Armed Forces (SwAF) under the name Edda 1. Plans include building a constellation of up to 10 satellites and establishing a Swedish Armed Forces Space Operations Centre.

A Pelican satellite built in Germany by Planet Labs Germany will be launched in late 2026 on a German Spectrum launch vehicle.