Why this name is on the tape
Planet Labs PBC (NYSE: PL) is a San Francisco public-benefit company. The product is a daily picture of Earth — SuperDove / PlanetScope for the wide layer, SkySat and Pelican for high-resolution tasking, Tanager for hyperspectral. It is not a phone link and not home broadband. Search boxes that stop at Planet.com still miss that split.
A separate MarketNeon note covers the $94.2 million fiscal Q1 print, the $906 million backlog, and how remaining performance obligations differ from cancelable seats. This article is the named-seat map after Pelican-11 reached orbit. Fiscal Q2 2027, which ended 31 July 2026, printed after the close on 3 September 2026. This is not a ranking of the stock and not a trade instruction.
Pelican-11 launched. Commissioning is not a commercial product.
On 7 July 2026 Planet said Pelican-11 launched aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-17 rideshare from Vandenberg Space Force Base. The company made initial contact and began commissioning. Planet called it the tech-demonstration satellite (TD2) for the second-generation Pelican fleet: a dedicated engineering pathfinder to validate hardware before those designs go on production Gen-2 birds. Planet also said Pelican-11 is not anticipated to produce commercially available data.
That is the line the tape often skips. Gen-1 Pelicans are designed for about 50-centimeter-class imagery. Gen-2 is designed toward about 30-centimeter-class imagery. A pathfinder in checkout is not a 30 cm catalog. In May 2026 Planet launched three AI-enabled Pelicans, including the Swedish Armed Forces’ first sovereign reconnaissance satellite, and said that brought the high-resolution Pelican count on orbit to nine. Nine Gen-1 birds plus a non-commercial demo is not a finished Gen-2 constellation.
Three named satellite-services seats
Satellite services, in Planet’s telling, means the company builds and flies dedicated capacity for a customer — often with a sovereign flavor — instead of only selling a shared archive subscription. Those seats are multi-year. Imagery licenses and short government tasking orders still print. They are not the same book.
- SKY Perfect JSAT ($230 million, January 2025): Planet first announced a multi-year commercial agreement with a long-standing Asia-Pacific partner to build a dedicated Pelican constellation and keep some capacity for Planet’s other customers. SKY Perfect JSAT later named itself as that customer, through a U.S. entity, JSAT Beyond Innovation. Planet has said the agreement covers ten Pelicans, with about $230 million of commercial payments recognized over the build and operating period — estimated at about seven years. Ten contracted birds are not ten JSAT Pelicans already on orbit.
- Germany (€240 million, 1 July 2025): Planet Labs Germany GmbH announced a multi-year agreement funded by the German government for dedicated Pelican capacity and direct downlink over specified European regions, plus PlanetScope, SkySat, and AI tools for situational and maritime awareness. Planet said it expected to start recognizing revenue in January 2026 and to ramp over several years. Beginning to serve dedicated capacity is not the full €240 million already in the P&L. Planet did not name an end-user beyond the German funding.
- Sweden (low nine-figure, multi-year, January 2026): a suite of satellites, space-based data, and awareness solutions for the Swedish Armed Forces. Planet called it the third satellite-services contract in twelve months, and said Sweden would own a dedicated suite. The first Swedish sovereign reconnaissance satellite launched in May 2026, a little over four months after the contract. One bird up is not the whole suite delivered.
A second German line is not the €240 million book
On 20 August 2026 the EU Official Journal published award notice 576400-2026 (OJ S 160/2026): the Federal Republic of Germany, through the Interior Ministry’s central procurement office (Beschaffungsamt des BMI), awarded Planet Labs Germany GmbH a 60-month framework with a maximum value of about €25.21 million. The notice describes near-real-time satellite data and monitoring for the federal crisis and situation-awareness service (SKD) used by the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG). The contract was concluded 4 August 2026. Two bids were received. Planet did not issue a matching press release.
That framework is a German interior-ministry data seat. It is not the July 2025 €240 million satellite-services agreement. Mixing the two into one “Germany deal” is how a procurement notice becomes a second sovereign fleet on the tape. A 60-month ceiling is not cash already billed.
One-year tasking, and the seat that is only a demo
U.S. and other government orders in fiscal Q1 2027 were mostly short clocks. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency awarded a $21.9 million, one-year extension for maritime surveillance under Luno B / AAMOR, plus a separate Global Monitoring Service award for crisis response. The U.S. Navy renewed vessel detection in the Pacific for six months at $7.5 million. Planet also signed an eight-figure, one-year contract with an unnamed international defense customer for dedicated capacity already on orbit — Pelican, SkySat, and PlanetScope plus analytics. One year of dedicated tasking is not a multi-year sovereign fleet.
At the fiscal 2026 year-end update Planet described an R&D partnership with Google to demonstrate satellites for compute in space (Project Suncatcher). That is a research demonstration. It is not a named satellite-services customer and not booked colocation revenue.
What has printed — including the 3 September Q2 print
For the quarter ended 30 April 2026 Planet reported $94.2 million of revenue, up 42% from $66.3 million. GAAP net loss was $138.9 million; about $106.5 million of that was a warrant-liability revaluation. Adjusted EBITDA was a $1.0 million loss. Cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments were $730.8 million. Remaining performance obligations were $816 million. Backlog was more than $906 million, which still includes cancelable government seats. A separate note walks through that split.
On 4 June the company said it expected fiscal Q2 revenue of about $102–$107 million and full-year fiscal 2027 revenue of about $425–$441 million, with adjusted EBITDA profit of $0–$10 million. Planet reported the Q2 print after the close on Thursday, 3 September 2026. Those June figures were company targets, not the print.
What this does not tell you
Pelican-11 on orbit is evidence that Planet flew a Gen-2 pathfinder and made contact. It is not proof that 30-centimeter commercial imagery is for sale, that the JSAT ten-pack has launched, that the €240 million German-funded book is already in the P&L, or that the €25 million SKD framework is a second dedicated constellation. Fiscal Q2 2027 printed on 3 September 2026. That release date was a calendar until the number posted.
On MarketNeon, PL is a ticker like any other: price, volume, crowd mentions, and headlines can run hot on a Pelican launch while the next quarter is still a target and the named seats are still on different clocks. This article is context for those prints. It does not rank the name, and it does not tell anyone to buy or sell.