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Planet Labs' public TLE feed reveals 97 active satellites still in orbit

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GoKawiil Brief

Planet Labs, the San Francisco-based Earth-imaging company, maintains a public ephemerides feed that lists tracking data for its satellite fleet. A query of this data against catalog records shows 97 Planet Labs satellites currently active, spanning several constellations including the newly launched Pelican-11, which was deployed into low Earth orbit via SpaceX's Transporter 17 mission on July 7th.

Why It Matters

GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.

Planet Labs' willingness to publish detailed orbital data openly is unusual for a commercial satellite operator and gives outside analysts a rare, verifiable window into the real scale and health of a daily Earth-imaging constellation. It also underscores the company's growing geopolitical visibility, as its leadership has recently appeared alongside senior NATO and European officials, hinting at expanding strategic and defense-related interest in its imagery capabilities.

Key Takeaways
Worth a Look

DuckDB in Action (Manning book) — The article's satellite ephemeris analysis runs entirely through DuckDB queries, and this Manning guide walks you through the same kind of fast, local analytics on CSV and Parquet files. It's a great way to go from copy-pasting shell one-liners to writing your own orbital data pipelines.

See DuckDB in Action (Manning book) on Amazon → Affiliate link — we may earn a commission on purchases, at no extra cost to you. Product picked by AI based on this article; it is not a tested recommendation.

Source: tech.marksblogg.com — Mark Litwintschik, 2026-09-09

Published there as: “Planet Labs' Open Satellite Feed”

Read the original report → The summary and analysis above are GoKawiil's own, written from reporting by the source above. Facts and quotes belong to the original publisher.