Planet Labs PBC (NYSE: PL), a leading provider of daily data and insights about change on Earth, announced that its subsidiary, Planet Labs Federal, has been awarded an evaluation task order under NASA’s Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition (CSDA) program. Under the agreement, NASA will evaluate Planet’s high-resolution Tanager hyperspectral dataset to assess its quality, reliability, and utility for supporting the agency’s Earth science goals.
Under the agreement, NASA will acquire Tanager data covering more than 250,000 square kilometers across both recent archive data and newly tasked coverage. The evaluation will assess both Level 1C (Top-of-Atmosphere reflectance) and Level 2A (Bottom-of-Atmosphere surface reflectance) data products derived from Tanager’s state-of-the-art Dyson-type imaging spectrometer. Capable of measuring radiance across more than 400 contiguous spectral channels at 30-meter resolution, Tanager is designed to provide high spectral fidelity. Its data products are structured to support potential use with existing NASA algorithms and modeling frameworks. The evaluation will focus on establishing Tanager's utility across critical Earth science focus areas, including atmospheric composition, biodiversity, hydrology, geology, and rapid response to dynamic events like wildfires and floods. A core objective of the CSDA evaluation is enabling faster science, rapidly processing complex hyperspectral observations into research-ready datasets delivered directly via Planet's APIs to accelerate scientific breakthroughs.
“NASA’s CSDA program continues to pioneer novel pathways for commercial innovation to serve the scientific community,” said Robbie Schingler, Chief Strategy Officer and Co-founder at Planet. “Hyperspectral data holds immense potential for understanding our changing planet, but realizing that potential depends on how quickly and effectively scientists can put it to work. By making rich spectral data available to researchers, NASA is enabling new approaches to solve pressing environmental challenges. This evaluation will help train a whole new cadre of scientists whose results will inform future government users and commercial applications.”
This milestone follows the successful launch of Tanager-2 on October 1, 2026. Just a week after launch, Planet captured and released Tanager-2’s first light image, revealing high-resolution spectral capabilities and detecting its first methane plume over Spain’s Costa Blanca. The rapid capture and publication of Tanager-2 imagery underscores the platform’s operational readiness and ability to deliver actionable environmental data.
The NASA CSDA evaluation complements ongoing independent assessments of the Tanager constellation, including an evaluation by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) focused on on-orbit performance and calibration accuracy. Together, these evaluations provide information that Planet uses to support its ongoing efforts to ensure data quality, scientific integrity, and cross‑agency collaboration To further broaden community access and foster open research, Planet is also enabling streamlined data availability through OpenSTAC standards, and recently launched the Tanager Open Data Competition. This competition allows researchers and developers worldwide to explore, analyze, and build applications using Tanager hyperspectral data.
At the conclusion of the evaluation, NASA will publish a comprehensive report detailing the data quality, utility, and potential for broader integration across Earth science research initiatives, which will help inform decisions to make Tanager data available to the federally funded scientific community.