Planet opens Berlin satellite factory, Pelican production to start this autumn
Planet opened its Berlin satellite factory, with Germany's economy minister attending; Pelican production starts this autumn.
what happened
Planet Labs GmbH held the handover and opening of its new satellite manufacturing facility in Berlin's Mitte district on Sept. 22, with German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Katherina Reiche attending, per Planet's own release. The 5,700-square-meter facility will build 300 kg-class, 30-centimeter-resolution Pelican satellites, with production starting this autumn, the first satellite completed before year-end, and the first Berlin-built satellites launching on an Isar Aerospace Spectrum vehicle in early 2027; at full scale the facility can produce up to 60 satellites a year. Planet's Berlin team numbers nearly 150 people, growing by 70 more, and the facility unifies the manufacturing, engineering, mission operations, data processing and AI analytics that Planet announced moving there on Sept. 17.
why it matters
Manufacturing satellites on German soil, not just operating them from there, lets Planet sell into government and defense customers that require sovereign, EU-built hardware; a federal minister attending the opening underscores that state-security framing, reinforcing the same logic behind Germany's new BKG tasking contract with Planet and Rocket Lab's and ICEYE's own sovereign-manufacturing subsidiaries elsewhere in Europe.
for who
EO resellers and European government buyers weighing sovereign supply
signal-to-noise
quick facts
- Companies
- Planet Labs
- Category
- product
- Impact
- notable
- SNR
- 5 / 5
- Event date
- 2026-09-22
- Published
- 2026-09-29 08:10 UTC