NASA Extends Contract with Planet Federal Granting Access to Planet Data to over 300,000 Scientists

We are thrilled to share that NASA exercised an option to extend its contract with Planet under the Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program through September 2023. Planet has been providing data to NASA scientists and federal civilian agency funded researchers under this program since 2018 and we look forward to continuing to help power this community’s research of our changing Earth. 

Today,  researchers funded by any U.S. Federal Civilian agency or the National Science Foundation, including their contractors and grantees, have access to Planet data. That is, hundreds of thousands of scientists can access our satellite data to gain a deeper understanding of the effects of climate change, biodiversity loss, changing ecosystems, disaster response, and more. Using this global and high-frequency dataset, these groups can work to develop potential solutions to complex and ever-evolving sustainability challenges. 

“As our world experiences greater biodiversity loss and climate change, it’s more critical than ever that we have the tools in place to power action,” said Robbie Schingler, co-founder and CSO at Planet. “We are eager to see the innovation from NASA scientists and federally funded researchers continue to leverage Planet’s daily scan of the planet to help us better understand our changing Earth system. Working together, it is our hope that we can better monitor nature and human-led change and avert our planetary emergency.”

In the last year alone, users under the CSDA Program downloaded the equivalent of over five times the entire Earth’s landmass in Planet data, generating a deep repository of information to be used in their studies. From exploring the chronic effects on the world’s food supply due to the war in Ukraine to monitoring harmful sargassum inundation on Florida beaches, tracking walruses driven to shore in Alaska due to climate change, and mapping the spatial extent of the areas affected by wildfires, these researchers are rethinking the possible when it comes to better understanding and protecting Earth’s valuable ecosystems. 

“The Planet-NASA CDSA program has made a huge, positive impact on my research program,” said Katie Gold, Assistant Professor of Grape Pathology at Cornell University. “I first learned about the program when I received my first NASA grant in 2020 and encouraged my graduate students to start exploring the data. Since our first explorations in 2020, we have gone on to integrate Planet data–both through NASA’s CDSA Program and by purchasing Planet’s high-resolution SkySat imagery–into almost every research project we have ongoing. Our research leveraging Planet data has received independent funding from both the Cornell Institute for Digital Agriculture as well as the New York Wine and Grape Foundation. All started by the NASA-Planet CDSA!”

The CSDA Program was established to identify, evaluate, and acquire data from commercial sources that support NASA’s Earth science research and application goals for societal benefit. Supporting the CSDA program by empowering this community of researchers and scientists to utilize our satellite data for high impact science is core to our mission of making change visible, accessible and actionable. 

To learn more about this program and apply, visit the NASA page on Planet’s website and check out our latest “Kickstarting Your Science with Planet” webinar for information on how to begin using Planet data as a new or existing researcher. 

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