Planet Labs' Pelican-12 satellite arrives at Cape Canaveral for launch

Planet Labs PBC (NYSE: PL) announced that its Pelican-12 satellite has arrived at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida ahead of its planned launch on SpaceX's Bandwagon-5 rideshare mission.

Pelican-12 is a second-generation (Gen 2) Pelican satellite, shipping less than three months after Pelican-11, which launched in July 2026. The satellite includes updates to payload and communication systems compared to its predecessor.

Gen 2 Pelican satellites are designed to capture up to 30 cm class imagery, compared to the 50 cm class imagery of first-generation Pelicans. Pelican-12 is equipped with an Nvidia Jetson platform to support on-orbit edge computing and a steerable antenna intended to enable two-way intersatellite communications at data rates exceeding the 1 Mbps achieved in a 2025 demonstration conducted with SES.

Pelican-12 will be the fifth Pelican satellite Planet has launched in 2026. The company stated it plans to launch additional Pelican spacecraft in 2027. Planet also said manufacturing at its expanded Berlin facility is set to begin in 2026 to scale production capacity.

According to a company press release, the satellite is intended to help Planet test commercial data relay services and reduce data delivery latency to customers.

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