NATO has tapped Planet Labs‘ PlanetScope Broad Area Monitoring technology, which is equipped with advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning analytics, under a million-dollar contract award.
The alliance will rely on the Planet Labs platform to sustain its space-based surveillance and enhance early warnings and maritime domain awareness, the company said Thursday. It added that the AI-based technology will be combined with NATO’s indications and warning capabilities, shifting to proactive, wide-area anomaly detection from reactive, target-focused surveillance. This integration is designed to boost efficiency and promote strategic foresight across NATO’s areas of concern.
Satellite Surveillance Demand
Will Marshall, Planet Labs co-founder and CEO, said the company is “uniquely equipped” to fill the growing global market need for dependable partners in broad area intelligence to enhance defense capabilities in the current geopolitical environment. “Our growth with NATO showcases Planet’s unparalleled ability to provide the necessary scale and frequency of data collection that’s critical for daily, global intelligence,” he said.
In August, the NATO Communications and Information Agency awarded Planet Labs a contract to enable the Alliance Persistent Surveillance from Space program, supporting NATO missions to access SkySat satellite data. As of 2024, the company operates an Earth observation space fleet of 240 satellites.
The new NATO contract is the latest in the Los Angeles, California-based contract wins from European customers. Planet Labs secured a contract from the European Space Agency in March to support Greece’s national satellite program and Berlin extended its Earth data supply contract in May.