Rendering of a next-generation Planet Owl satellite in orbit. Photo: Planet

Planet unveiled its next-generation “Owl” satellites, which are designed to provide near-daily monitoring in 1-meter resolution, with more advanced onboard processing capabilities. The Owl fleet will provide continuity with the existing SuperDove fleet that underpins the company’s core, PlanetScope Monitoring product. 

A technical demonstration is slated for launch late next year, Planet said in a Wednesday announcement. The Owl fleet is set to launch “over the following years.” 

The satellites will also be equipped with Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs), which Planet said will allow the satellites to perform AI at the edge. An example of this is identifying objects or detecting anomalies at the sensor level, in orbit. 

The 1-meter resolution Owl satellites will mark an improvement over the 3-meter resolution SuperDoves, and will operate in the same spectral bands. The satellites will have the upgraded version of Planet’s avionics platform that is used by the Pelican and Tanager satellites, which allows for increased capacity, image quality, and lower latency. 

Planet CEO Will Marshall explained in a video the satellites are called Owls because they have “big eyes, and they’re wise.” He said these satellites are the next step in Planet’s embrace of AI, which includes collaboration with Anthropic and Google, training AI on Planet’s data. 

“These satellites aren’t just sharper, they’re smarter,” Marshall said. “Each carries on board the latest GPU processes from Nvidia to do AI processing in orbit. With the agile aerospace methodology that Planet pioneered, we can mass manufacture them and we can continuously improve them. Costs go down, compute goes up, coverage expands, and resolution improves — the system gets smarter over time.”