# Planet Labs: orbital data center program

> United States (United States), supplier. Stage 5 of 7: Own satellite flown. It built and launched the Suncatcher prototype on 2026-10-01, and its Pelican-4 ran onboard GPU inference in March 2026.

- Canonical page: https://spacenexus.us/orbital-data-centers/planet-labs
- This Markdown version: https://spacenexus.us/orbital-data-centers/planet-labs.md
- Data as of: 2026-10-05 (last evidence review)
- How the numbers are made: https://spacenexus.us/orbital-data-centers#method

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## Stage evidence

- It built and launched the Suncatcher prototype on 2026-10-01, and its Pelican-4 ran onboard GPU inference in March 2026. Sources: [Google](https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/google-research/project-suncatcher-prototype/); [Planet (Business Wire)](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260407165913/en/Planet-Successfully-Runs-AI-in-Space)

## Approach

- Orbit: Sun-synchronous LEO
- Architecture: Builds and operates Google's Suncatcher prototypes; runs NVIDIA GPU inference on its own Pelican imaging satellites. The Suncatcher prototype uses the same bus as its planned Owl satellites, under an R&D contract with Google
- Power: Suncatcher prototype about 1 kW (reported)
- Cooling: Not disclosed
- Compute: Hosts Google TPUs; NVIDIA Jetson Orin on Pelicans
- Customers: Google

## Milestones

| Date | Status | Confidence | Milestone | Sources |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 2025-11-04 | achieved | Confirmed | Named Google's Suncatcher prototype partner. Google is also a Planet investor. | [Google](https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/research/google-project-suncatcher/) |
| 2026-03-16 | achieved | Confirmed | Listed in NVIDIA space computing partner release | [NVIDIA](https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/space-computing) |
| 2026-03-25 | achieved | Confirmed | Pelican-4 detects aircraft onboard with a Jetson Orin. About 80% accuracy on raw imagery. | [Via Satellite](https://www.satellitetoday.com/imagery-and-sensing/2026/04/07/planet-details-ai-driven-object-detection-onboard-pelican-4-satellite/); [Planet (Business Wire)](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260407165913/en/Planet-Successfully-Runs-AI-in-Space) |
| 2026-10-01 | achieved | Confirmed | Launched the Suncatcher demo satellite with 19 other Planet satellites on Transporter-18 | [Planet (Business Wire)](https://www.financialcontent.com/article/bizwire-2026-10-1-planet-launches-suncatcher-tanager-2-and-18-superdove-satellites) |

## Announced next steps (as the organisation stated them)

- 2027: Pair of Suncatcher satellites with Google. Sources: [The Motley Fool](https://www.fool.com/investing/2026/10/02/why-planet-labs-stock-popped-on-friday/)
- early 2027 (Planet executive, as reported): Owl satellite compute demo with NVIDIA GPUs. Sources: [Via Satellite](https://www.satellitetoday.com/technology/2026/06/02/are-orbital-data-centers-the-next-frontier-of-ai-infrastructure/)

## What to watch (SpaceNexus note, not a prediction)

The 2027 Suncatcher pair and the Owl GPU demo.

## Cautions

- Builder and host, not an orbital data center operator.

## People

- Will Marshall (co-founder, CEO)

## Sources

- [Google](https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/google-research/project-suncatcher-prototype/)
- [Planet (Business Wire)](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260407165913/en/Planet-Successfully-Runs-AI-in-Space)
- [Google](https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/research/google-project-suncatcher/)
- [NVIDIA](https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/space-computing)
- [Via Satellite](https://www.satellitetoday.com/imagery-and-sensing/2026/04/07/planet-details-ai-driven-object-detection-onboard-pelican-4-satellite/)
- [Planet (Business Wire)](https://www.financialcontent.com/article/bizwire-2026-10-1-planet-launches-suncatcher-tanager-2-and-18-superdove-satellites)
- [The Motley Fool](https://www.fool.com/investing/2026/10/02/why-planet-labs-stock-popped-on-friday/)
- [Via Satellite](https://www.satellitetoday.com/technology/2026/06/02/are-orbital-data-centers-the-next-frontier-of-ai-infrastructure/)

## Licence and credits

- Licence: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) for the stage, labels and summaries compiled by SpaceNexus. Cite as "Data: SpaceNexus (spacenexus.us)" with a link to https://spacenexus.us/orbital-data-centers/planet-labs.
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