Planet Labs PBC, a leading provider of daily data and insights about change on Earth, today announced that its Tanager-2 satellite and the 18 SuperDove satellites of Flock 4J have arrived at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California ahead of their launch aboard the upcoming Transporter-18 rideshare mission with SpaceX. Building on the operational success of Planet’s recent launches, this multi-constellation shipment marks a significant milestone in the expansion of Planet’s hyperspectral capabilities and bolsters the daily, global PlanetScope monitoring mission.

“The growth of these constellations, and our third launch this year, are testaments to our satellite build velocity,” said Will Marshall, Co-Founder and CEO of Planet. “This launch includes 18 SuperDoves that enable Planet’s daily scan mission, which underpins the AI-powered broad area solutions that are core to unlocking new markets, as well as Tanager-2, which is designed to double our hyperspectral capacity and halve revisit times to detect methane super-emitters and more as part of our project with Carbon Mapper!”

Tanager features best-in-class hyperspectral VSWIR (Visible, Near Infrared and Short wave infrared) imaging capabilities. With a cutting-edge, adjustable sensitivity imaging spectroscopy payload onboard, Tanager is designed to capture imagery in 426 contiguous bands with ~5nm spectral resolution and at a 30-meter spatial resolution. In partnership with Carbon Mapper, Planet continues to scale the fleet, with plans to build and deploy at least three additional Tanager satellites following Tanager-2.

“Our public methane data and many partners are driving global emissions action, informing mitigation efforts and policy, and reducing harmful impacts on climate, public health and air quality,” said Riley Duren, CEO of Carbon Mapper. “This launch represents a major milestone as we continue to expand the capacity of the constellation and scale up data-driven climate action. Carbon Mapper’s methane detection and notification efforts have already enabled the mitigation of large methane sources in diverse regions, and we look forward to making even more impact with Tanager-2.”

While the core mission of the growing Tanager constellation is to detect and mitigate methane emissions across the globe, Tanager can also support an increasing array of potential commercial applications, including monitoring active mines, analyzing coral reef health, providing agricultural management tools, assessing the health of water bodies, and more. In conjunction with Tanager-1, Tanager-2 is designed to support Planet’s evolving hyperspectral data offerings, including more advanced collection modes such as glint tasking for offshore methane emissions detection and an improved collection capacity.

The 18 SuperDoves of Flock 4J will supplement PlanetScope, Planet’s flagship daily, global monitoring mission, which provides consistent global coverage across millions of square kilometers for customers in commercial enterprise, civil government, and defense and intelligence sectors.