The quotes rose along with the Planet Labs satellite grouping

Planet Labs PBC (PL) rose 13.77% to $6.36 at the auction on January 14. The market capitalization was $1.47 billion. The reason was the sending into orbit 44 new satellites called SuperDove, which will increase the company’s addressable market. 

Planet Labs currently has 244 Earth Remote Sensing (ERS) satellites. These are small satellites, but the grouping is the largest in history and provides daily global satellite imagery with a resolution of fifty cm. For the first time, such capabilities make it possible to perform continuous monitoring tasks, such as emergencies, managing sea, and land traffic, monitoring the environmental situation, and much more. 

Also, a grouping of Planet Labs satellites can perform traditional remote sensing tasks, such as monitoring farmland and forest fires. The constellation of Planet Labs satellites has capabilities that no remote sensing satellite network has previously had. 

In addition, all 100% of the large Planet Labs grouping satellites have been successfully deployed and are working correctly, which is also a record and confirms the successful design and manufacturing quality of spacecraft. At the same time, SuperDove satellites cost only $ 300 thousand per unit along with launch (as a secondary payload of Falcon 9 rockets from SpaceX). 

Cheap, and upgrading the entire Planet Labs satellite network to SuperDove satellites can cost the company only $13 million. The company can monetize satellite remote sensing with profitability previously unavailable to other companies. Planet Labs’ annual revenue is more than $124 million.