# Planet's satellite fleet ranges from daily scans to methane detection

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/planets-satellite-fleet-ranges-from-daily-scans-to-methane/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Will Marshall](https://realalpha.app/people/will-marshall/) · Will Marshall is cofounder and CEO of Planet Labs. · Co-founded Planet and leads its Earth-imaging satellite network, after developing low-cost spacecraft at NASA/USRA.
- Host: [Molly O'Shea](https://realalpha.app/people/molly-oshea/) · Founder, Sourcery · Ex-Upfront Ventures investor; has interviewed Alex Karp and Palmer Luckey.
- Show: Sourcery
- Episode: [Planet Labs CEO: Why AI Data Centers Will Move to Space](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/), Nov 5, 2026
- Moment: 14:43 to 17:30 of the episode (3 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/planets-satellite-fleet-ranges-from-daily-scans-to-methane/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=883

## Quote

> “these have **420 color bands** that enable you to sort of get a fingerprint of what you see on the Earth.”
> — [Will Marshall](https://realalpha.app/people/will-marshall/) at [16:05](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=965) · Sourcery

## Takeaways

1. Doves scan Earth's landmass daily at three-meter resolution.
2. Pelicans take higher-resolution images of customer-selected locations.
3. Tanager's 420 bands can reveal crops, camouflage and methane.

## About this segment

Will Marshall distinguishes the daily-scanning Dove, tasked Pelican and 420-band Tanager. Each serves different needs, from broad coverage to detecting methane and camouflage.

From “Planet Labs CEO: Why AI Data Centers Will Move to Space”, Nov 5, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[14:48](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=888) more. To walk through the satellites that you produce, you produce a handful and they're all called different birds. I know we talked about this on the tour, but could you walk through the different use cases or the specs for each one of them, starting with dove? Yeah. So the doves are our mainstay scan. That's the thing that no one else has on the planet, the daily scan of the earth they cover all the earth landmass about 200 million square kilometers so more than the land mass of the earth they cover a bunch of ocean territory as well in eight spectral bands at three meter resolution then we have our pelicans which are our highest resolution satellites and those ones imaged and particular tasks locations that our customers ask for so one is automatically scanning. The other one you say, hey, take a picture of here, here, here, and then we can do

[15:39](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=939) that. The most unique aspect of that is that we're building up to a fleet that has much more revisit than anyone else and faster timeliness. So if you say, our goal is that if you say, hey, I want a picture of Tahiti, you can get a picture of Tahiti, you can make the request, get the image back and analyzed in 30 minutes, no matter where it is on the planet. And then we have our Tanager spacecraft, which are hyperspectral satellites.

[16:07](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=967) So instead of having three colors like our eye, these have 420 color bands that enable you to sort of get a fingerprint of what you see on the Earth. It's basically 400 different images for every point on the Earth's landmass that you're imaging and with really narrow spectral bands. and that what that enables you to see is not just that that's blue or green there's this type of blue or green such that you can identify tree species crop species so it's useful for ag and biodiversity and monitoring land but it's also good for defense because you can see camouflage and there's a distinction between camouflage and a real vehicle it's good for emissions and pollution so we can detect methane pollutants around the world.

[16:55](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1015) So if there's a gas leak, you can literally see the gas. Even though methane gas is colorless, we can see it because in this spectral band, it sticks out like a sore thumb. So we can detect those gas leaks and help tell operators, hey, you've got a gas leak, and then they can turn it off. That's good for the planet, and it's good for them. It saves them money. So basically, different kinds of satellites that do all these different things.

[17:19](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1039) They're all about collecting better information to help people make better decisions and actions. And to the point of being in San Francisco,