Planet announced its largest contract to date on Jan. 29, securing a $230 million multiyear deal with an undisclosed commercial customer based in the Asia-Pacific region. Under the agreement, Planet will design, launch, and operate its Pelican high-resolution Earth-observation satellites, allocating a portion of the satellite capacity to the unnamed customer, which collaborates closely with a government agency.
The new contract is a significant step in Planet's growth. CEO and co-founder Will Marshall commented, “This is a major step forward in what we see as a very large market opportunity. These types of partnerships are a win-win: our partners gain critical satellite capabilities and priority access to leading-edge technology, while they help Planet accelerate key space programs and create synergistic benefits for all our customers.”
This agreement represents Planet's third strategic partnership in the past four years. The company previously launched Tanager, its first hyperspectral satellite, through a collaboration with the Carbon Mapper Coalition. Additionally, Planet is working with SES Government Solutions under a NASA contract to demonstrate space-to-space connectivity between Pelican and other satellites.
“We are strategically pursuing a select number of similar opportunities, spanning our Pelican, Tanager, and SuperDove satellites across the defense and intelligence, civil government, and commercial sectors,” Marshall added.
Planet will recognize the $230 million in payments over the next six or more years as it builds and operates the Pelican satellites for its Asia-Pacific partner. However, the company stated that this contract would not alter its financial outlook for the fourth quarter of 2025, which was previously discussed during its December 9 earnings call.
Ashley Johnson, Planet's president and CFO, noted, “We view these types of opportunities as highly strategic, enabling us to provide a differentiated capability for key partners and strengthen our financial position without taking on dilutive capital or debt. We expect this expanded partnership will be meaningfully cash flow accretive in 2026 and will strengthen our balance sheet in 2027 and beyond.”
Planet launched its first Pelican technology demonstrator in 2023, with the Pelican-2 satellite taking flight on Jan. 14 as part of the SpaceX Transporter-12 rideshare mission. The satellite is designed to capture high-resolution imagery with a 40-centimeter per pixel resolution in six multispectral bands, equipped with Nvidia's Jetson platform for faster on-orbit data processing.