{ "id": "pelican-4", "entry": 20, "name": "Planet's Pelican-4: object detection on board", "group": "ran", "class": "perception", "location": "Earth orbit", "operator": "Planet Labs PBC", "developer": "Planet Labs PBC", "host": "Pelican-4", "catalogue": { "number": 65316, "name": "PELICAN-4", "launched": "2025-08-26", "decayed": null, "match": "by name, the reviewer's judgement" }, "dates": { "launched": "2025-08-26", "ran": "25 March 2026", "reported": "2026-04-07", "ended": null }, "hardware": "NVIDIA Jetson Orin module", "software": "An object-detection model, not named", "did": "Took an image of an airport from orbit and ran a model on board to find the aeroplanes in it.", "marks": [ { "stage": "L", "evidence": 3, "basis": [ "c6" ] }, { "stage": "R", "evidence": 1, "basis": [ "c1", "c2", "c3" ] } ], "claims": [ { "id": "c1", "kind": "quote", "text": "the successful deployment and execution of AI-driven object detection directly onboard its Pelican-4 satellite", "speaker": "Planet Labs PBC", "relation": "operator", "source": "planet-ai-in-space-release", "url": "https://investors.planet.com/news/news-details/2026/Planet-Successfully-Runs-AI-in-Space/default.aspx", "source_title": "Planet Successfully Runs AI in Space", "publisher": "Planet Labs PBC", "source_kind": "press-release", "published": "2026-04-07", "published_basis": "date printed on the release", "accessed": "2026-10-04", "copy_route": "wayback", "read": "in full: the body of the release, about 3,600 characters, up to its forward-looking statements" }, { "id": "c2", "kind": "quote", "text": "Planet's Pelican-4 captured an image of an airport, then successfully utilized its onboard NVIDIA Jetson Orin module to run an AI model to detect airplanes in moments", "speaker": "Planet Labs PBC", "relation": "operator", "source": "planet-ai-in-space-release", "url": "https://investors.planet.com/news/news-details/2026/Planet-Successfully-Runs-AI-in-Space/default.aspx", "source_title": "Planet Successfully Runs AI in Space", "publisher": "Planet Labs PBC", "source_kind": "press-release", "published": "2026-04-07", "published_basis": "date printed on the release", "accessed": "2026-10-04", "copy_route": "wayback", "read": "in full: the body of the release, about 3,600 characters, up to its forward-looking statements" }, { "id": "c3", "kind": "quote", "text": "This first detection has an 80% detection accuracy on raw imagery.", "speaker": "Planet Labs PBC", "relation": "operator", "source": "planet-ai-in-space-release", "url": "https://investors.planet.com/news/news-details/2026/Planet-Successfully-Runs-AI-in-Space/default.aspx", "source_title": "Planet Successfully Runs AI in Space", "publisher": "Planet Labs PBC", "source_kind": "press-release", "published": "2026-04-07", "published_basis": "date printed on the release", "accessed": "2026-10-04", "copy_route": "wayback", "read": "in full: the body of the release, about 3,600 characters, up to its forward-looking statements" }, { "id": "c4", "kind": "quote", "text": "This represents one of the first times an Earth imaging satellite has moved beyond simple data capture to onboard AI inference and analysis.", "speaker": "Planet Labs PBC", "relation": "operator", "source": "planet-ai-in-space-release", "url": "https://investors.planet.com/news/news-details/2026/Planet-Successfully-Runs-AI-in-Space/default.aspx", "source_title": "Planet Successfully Runs AI in Space", "publisher": "Planet Labs PBC", "source_kind": "press-release", "published": "2026-04-07", "published_basis": "date printed on the release", "accessed": "2026-10-04", "copy_route": "wayback", "read": "in full: the body of the release, about 3,600 characters, up to its forward-looking statements" }, { "id": "c5", "kind": "quote", "text": "was joined by five more in 2025: Pelican-2 in January, Pelican-3 and Pelican-4 in August, and Pelican-5 and Pelican-6 in November", "speaker": "Planet Labs PBC", "relation": "operator", "source": "planet-pelican-2025-review", "url": "https://www.planet.com/pulse/pelican-2025-in-review/", "source_title": "Pelican 2025 in Review", "publisher": "Planet Labs PBC", "source_kind": "blog", "published": "2026-01-13", "published_basis": "page metadata", "accessed": "2026-10-04", "copy_route": "direct", "read": "in part: the section on launches, about 600 of 4,000 characters" }, { "id": "c6", "kind": "data", "fields": { "OBJECT_NAME": "PELICAN-4", "LAUNCH_DATE": "2025-08-26" }, "speaker": "CelesTrak satellite catalogue", "relation": "catalogue", "source": "celestrak-65316", "url": "https://celestrak.org/satcat/records.php?CATNR=65316&FORMAT=json", "source_title": "Satellite catalogue record 65316 (PELICAN-4)", "publisher": "CelesTrak", "source_kind": "catalogue", "published": "undated", "published_basis": "a live catalogue record; dated by when it was read", "accessed": "2026-10-04", "copy_route": "json", "read": "in full" }, { "id": "c7", "kind": "quote", "text": "Planet Labs uses NVIDIA to convert satellite imagery into real-time intelligence in orbit", "speaker": "NVIDIA, the chip supplier", "relation": "supplier", "source": "nvidia-space-computing", "url": "https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/edge-computing/space-computing/", "source_title": "Space Computing: On-Orbit AI & Accelerated Computing", "publisher": "NVIDIA", "source_kind": "product-page", "published": "undated", "published_basis": "no date in the text; page metadata says 2026-09-16", "accessed": "2026-10-04", "copy_route": "direct", "read": "in part: the first 3,800 of 4,100 characters" } ], "conflicts": [], "notes": "The accuracy figure is the operator's, for one image. Its wording of priority is careful: \"one of the first times\", not the first. The release was read from an archive capture of Planet's investor page, because the page itself refused the request.", "changed": "Until 4 October 2026 this entry rested on the chip supplier's product page alone, at R0. Planet's own release was then found and read, which makes it an operator's statement of a run: R1. The launch is confirmed from the catalogue.", "headline": "L3 R1" }