Planet launches Pelican-12 with satellite relay and onboard AI test
Planet Labs · SES Space & Defense · SpaceX
Planet's fifth Pelican satellite this year tests satellite-to-satellite relay via SES O3b mPOWER and onboard NVIDIA AI inference.
what happened
Planet Labs launched its Pelican-12 satellite on SpaceX's Bandwagon-5 rideshare mission from Cape Canaveral on October 20, per Planet's own release. Pelican-12 is the fifth Gen 2 Pelican launched this year and Planet's 25th satellite to orbit in 2026. Gen 2 Pelicans deliver up to 30 cm class imagery, versus 50 cm for Gen 1. The satellite carries a prototype communication package to test satellite-to-satellite relay for SES Space & Defense by downlinking imagery via SES's O3b mPOWER satellites, plus an NVIDIA Jetson module for onboard AI inferencing.
why it matters
The O3b mPOWER relay test is Planet exploring a commercial data-relay path that could cut imagery delivery latency without waiting for a ground station pass, a capability resellers selling time-sensitive imagery would value if it reaches production. The onboard Jetson module tests extracting structured data in orbit before downlink, another step toward selling detections rather than raw imagery.
for who
EO resellers and customers who need faster imagery delivery
signal-to-noise
quick facts
- Companies
- Planet Labs, SES Space & Defense, SpaceX
- Category
- constellation
- Impact
- notable
- SNR
- 5 / 5
- Event date
- 2026-10-20
- Published
- 2026-10-20 17:26 UTC