Planet Labs is ready to support the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) with near real-time monitoring of the nation’s extensive coastlines and vast arctic region, allowing Canada to assert its sovereignty and protect Canadian interests.
BY JAMES CARELESS
In today’s turbulent world, space-based ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) monitoring of borders and adversaries is vital for Canada’s national security. Thankfully, Planet Labs PBC (Planet) is here to help. Founded in 2010 by three NASA scientists, Planet designs, builds, and operates the largest Earth observation fleet of imaging satellites in service today.
“Planet is driven by a mission to image the world every day, and make change visible, accessible and actionable,” said Michael Mulley, Planet’s Canadian Defence and Intelligence Lead. “We provide mission-critical data, advanced insights, and software solutions to the world’s leading defence, intelligence, and government agencies, enabling users to simply and effectively derive unique value from satellite imagery.”
In the ISR space, Planet’s satellite-based observations can be used to track military movements, detect changes in critical infrastructure, observe damage caused by natural and manmade disasters, and secure borders on land and at sea.
A RANGE OF APPLICATIONS
Planet was created to capture observable insights regarding daily changes on Earth in order to solve a myriad of global challenges. For instance, this company’s space-based imagery is being used by the Brazilian government to monitor and combat illegal deforestation, illicit mining, and drug trade. “International governments and intelligence agencies also use our near-daily capture of the Earth’s surface to identify clandestine ship-to-ship transfers of illicit goods, such as sanctioned oil being exchanged on the black market on unidentified ships,” Mulley told CDR. “As well, our satellite data is used by multi-national government entities to enable detailed tracking and analysis of foreign military capabilities, the growth of infrastructure, and gradual military build-ups along borders.”
Broad Area Monitoring is one of Planet’s standout services. It is the practice of monitoring, measuring, and reporting changes across large, dispersed geographic areas and timescales using Earth observation data. “Today, organizations face significant pressures to reduce risk, lower costs, remain compliant, and optimize performance in a time of rapid global change,” Mulley explained. “To get the big picture, organizations need to see things from every angle. They need robust, multi-dimensional Earth data, made accessible and actionable at the moment of inquiry.”
Then there’s Planet’s Maritime Domain Awareness service, which allows users to keep a close eye on the world’s shipping, coastlines, and key ports. “To provide advanced insights, we’ve partnered with a number of organizations leveraging artificial intelligence to build robust maritime awareness solutions,” said Mulley. “For instance, with our partner Synmax, we’ve created a first-of-its-kind solution leveraged by the US Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Pacific. This analytics tool offers both vessel monitoring, identification, and classification, enabling strategic intelligence gathering and operations planning. Planet is the broadest collector of over-ocean satellite imagery, and Synmax is able to detect and identify tens of thousands of ships a day with this data.”
Planet’s over-ocean data is being used to identify vessel spoofing and detect illicit ship-to-ship transfers of sanctioned goods. These capabilities have already made news headlines. For instance, the New York Times highlighted the illegal shipping supply chain of sanctioned oil around the world; and Reuters revealed the international looting of grain — all thanks to this kind of space-based surveillance.
BACKSTOPPING RADARSAT
Canada’s three RCM (RADARSAT Constellation Mission) satellites were launched in 2019 and play a key role in Canada’s maritime monitoring strategy. Here’s the problem: “Canada’s Auditor General, Karen Hogan, has warned of the gap between when the RCM satellites reach the end of their useful life in 2026 and when replacement satellites would be ready in 2035,” Mulley told CDR. The good news? “Planet can help fill the gap with its fleet of hundreds of optical Earth Observation (EO) satellites to enhance surveillance, security and situational awareness in Canadian waters,” he said.
In fact, Planet can provide the Canadian Armed Forces with near real-time monitoring of vessels along all 244,000 km of Canada’s coastlines. By combining 24/7 global Automatic Identification System (AIS) data from ships, PlanetScope optical satellite imagery, and proprietary AI/machine learning data analysis, Planet and its partner Synmax can provide the CAF with actionable insights and comprehensive data-informed intelligence. This is crucial to prevent illegal activities, unauthorized vessel movements, or environmental hazards.
SUPPORTING CANADIAN ARCTIC DEFENCE
In May 2024, Canada released its ‘Our North Strong and Free’ defence policy, which prioritizes enhanced CAF defensive capabilities in the Canadian Arctic. Once again, this is an area where Planet is able to help.
“As the Arctic becomes more accessible to foreign actors, Canada needs to ensure the Canadian Armed Forces has the tools to assert its sovereignty and protect Canadian interests,” said Mulley. “This could be supported by Planet’s fleet of hundreds of satellites, which offer near real-time monitoring of vessels across millions of square kilometers.”
Planet’s satellite-based imagery can also assist the CAF in its disaster response missions, wherever they might be. Most recently, Planet imagery was used to help analyze and combat the LA wildfires, including as the base map for Microsoft AI for Good’s building damage assessments.
Editor’s note: Microsoft AI for Good, in collaboration with partners like Planet Labs, uses AI and satellite imagery to rapidly assess building damage after natural disasters, enabling faster and more targeted disaster relief efforts.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR PLANET?
Today, Planet has a lot to offer to anyone needing satellite-based ISR data. But it will be offering even more in the year to come.
For example, “we’re integrating AI into our systems and are continuing to build strategic AI-focused solutions with our partners,” Mulley told CDR. “Planet is downloading over 30 TB of imagery data every day, and with recent advances in AI, we can get insights to our customers faster, helping them get the bespoke information that they need from this deep stack of data. We’ve also started to launch our next-generation, high-resolution Pelican fleet. It is equipped with the NVIDIA Jetson AI platform, enabling us to rapidly process data through on-satellite edge computing. With this technology, we can unlock the potential to automatically identify objects of interest and deliver this information directly to our users.”
The bottom line: For anyone needing space-based ISR data in a hurry, Planet is the company to contact. Why wait to launch satellites tomorrow, when you can access this data today?
James Careless is CDR’s Ottawa Bureau Chief
