Planet launches first Tanager-1 hyperspectral satellite to monitor methane emissions
Planet has announced that its first hyperspectral satellite, Tanager-1, along with 36 SuperDoves (Flock 4BE), were successfully launched into orbit during the Transporter-11 Rideshare mission with SpaceX, which lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Friday.
The team has successfully made contact with Tanager-1 and started its commissioning process.
Tanager-1 is made possible by the Carbon Mapper Coalition, a philanthropically-funded effort to develop and deploy satellites designed to detect and track methane and carbon dioxide (CO2) super-emitters at a level of granularity needed to support direct mitigation action. Tanager-1 combines Planet’s cutting-edge agile aerospace and smallsat bus technology with the state-of-the-art imaging spectrometer design developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Tanager satellite. Image provided by Planet.
“This is an amazing all California effort! A Planet satellite carrying a JPL payload on a SpaceX rocket, from Vandenberg Air Force Base for a California charity Carbon Mapper to help the State of California! We’re proud to be a part of it,” said Will Marshall, Co-Founder and CEO of Planet. “Delivering innovative space-based solutions to our customers that improve environmental conditions is core to our mission. Placing cutting-edge imaging spectrometer technology in a smallsat bus platform is a remarkable achievement for this coalition. I’m incredibly proud of our team and everyone who helped bring this satellite to life.”
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) that has accounted for around 30% of atmospheric warming since 1750. To slow and ultimately halt global warming, methane emissions must be slashed this decade along with a sustained program to reduce CO2 emissions, the company said.
Future Tanager imagery will be analyzed by expert scientists at Carbon Mapper for methane and CO2 source detection and quantification. Meanwhile, Planet will commercialize the hyperspectral data for a variety of use cases including defense and intelligence monitoring, biodiversity assessments, mineral mapping and water quality assessments.
“The successful launch of Tanager-1 is a testament to the power of collaboration,” said Laurie Leshin, Director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Our partnership with Planet and Carbon Mapper exemplifies how we can come together to develop innovative solutions that address our most urgent climate challenges. JPL has a long history of developing advanced instruments and the imaging spectrometer onboard Tanager-1, combined with Planet’s expertise, will drive impact for environmental monitoring and mitigation. We’re excited to see the continued success of this coalition and are proud to be part of it.”
“Any serious effort to tackle climate change must include a focus on minimizing high-emissions point sources, particularly methane ‘super-emitters’ where a small fraction of infrastructure contributes disproportionately to total emissions,” said Riley Duren, Co-Founder and CEO of Carbon Mapper. “There are solutions at hand today that are capable of eliminating unnecessary leaks and wasteful practices, but until now most emissions sources have remained unobserved at the granular scales necessary to guide mitigation action. We’re incredibly excited to apply Tanager’s unique capabilities to make methane and CO2 emissions visible at high resolution globally—translating data into transparent and actionable information to help decision makers act now. There’s no time to waste.”
In addition to Tanager-1, the Transporter-11 rocket delivered 36 of Planet’s SuperDoves to orbit to contribute to its flagship daily, global monitoring mission. PlanetScope data is used by hundreds of customers in defense and intelligence, civil government, and commercial markets to take informed action, and better contextualize events they are seeing on the ground now. The company’s daily scan and deep archive of data across the globe is unique within the industry and provides customers with a continuous and comprehensive view of their areas of interest. Further, the archive acts as a rich training ground for predictive machine-learning and advanced artificial intelligence models, accelerating users’ ability to draw insights from the terabytes of data collected by Planet each day.
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