Latest news with #PlanetLabsPBC
Business Wire
a day ago
- Business
- Business Wire
Planet Secures Four Major Wins for AI-Enabled Solutions in the Defense and Intelligence Sector
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Planet Labs PBC (NYSE: PL), a leading provider of daily data and insights about change on Earth, today announced that following its June 4, 2025 earnings announcement, it has secured four major awards for its new AI-enabled solutions with customers in the Defense & Intelligence sector. These wins build on the global momentum discussed on Planet's last earnings call. Planet Labs PBC today announced it has secured four major awards for its new AI-enabled solutions with customers in the Defense & Intelligence sector. These contracts support enhanced situational awareness and informed decision-making for government customers in the U.S. and internationally. They underscore the growing demand for Planet's modern approach to national security, leveraging its proprietary satellite data and advanced artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. Among the key agreements being highlighted: As announced today in a separate press release, Planet won a €240 million contract, funded by Germany, one component of which is a multi-year contract renewal with an 8-figure annual value for PlanetScope data and AI-enabled solutions. In addition, Planet's existing Hybrid Space Architecture (HSA) contract with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), part of the U.S. Department of Defense, was recently expanded in support of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM). It will provide AI-enabled solutions focused on delivering vital indications and warnings for national security. As the U.S. government modernizes its defense capabilities, Planet's broad area data and AI advancements are designed to enable customers to monitor entire countries or regions for critical changes and threats. Planet signed a seven-figure expansion with the U.S. Navy to provide Maritime Domain Awareness over the Pacific Ocean region. Finally, as announced on June 12, 2025, Planet was selected by NATO for a seven-figure contract to deliver persistent space-based surveillance, enhanced indications and warnings, and critical Maritime Domain Awareness functions. These wins build on the momentum highlighted in Planet's other recent announcements, which include another 8-figure annual contract value win with a European defense and intelligence customer for PlanetScope and Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) products, as announced on Planet's prior earnings call. Additionally, Planet was recently awarded a contract option by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) as part of the Electro-Optical Commercial Layer (EOCL) program. This extends Planet's provision of daily monitoring and high-resolution tasking data, maintaining its prior EOCL performance level from June through October 2025. 'As shared on our recent earnings call, the changing geopolitical landscape and modernization of security capabilities are driving unprecedented interest in our solutions,' said Will Marshall, Planet's Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder. 'Today's announcements highlight the strong demand for AI-enabled solutions and our data, demonstrated by the multiple contracts with an eight-figure annual contract value.' Will Marshall continued, 'Our strategic decision to focus on AI-enabled solutions built on our daily satellite data was clearly the right decision. Nations are showing strong interest in these solutions for 'peripheral vision' – the ability to identify and understand threats across their region.' Planet's unique dataset, ideal for AI models and building next-generation solutions, includes daily scans of approximately 150 million square kilometers of land and 20 million square kilometers of critical ocean territory, complemented by an archive of over 3,000 images for every point on land. This wide-area monitoring capability empowers customers to uncover new threats, or "unknown unknowns," across vast land and ocean territories, moving beyond traditional "reconnaissance"-based intelligence gathering that primarily focuses on known threats. 'These wins clearly demonstrate the results of our go-to-market and product focus,' said Ashley Johnson, President and CFO. 'As shared in our prior earnings call, we're making a strategic shift towards downstream solutions, which is validated with significant customer wins such as those announced today. We look forward to sharing more on our Q2 call.' Planet is not updating its previously issued financial guidance for this fiscal year, which was provided on June 4, 2025. Planet will host a Press Briefing for members of the media today, July 1, 2025, at 12:00 p.m. ET / 9:00 a.m. PT. The live webinar can be accessed at and requires registration to participate. Concurrent with today's announcement, Planet has launched a new Defense & Intelligence section of its website, which can be accessed at About Planet Labs PBC Planet is a leading provider of global, daily satellite imagery and geospatial solutions. Planet is driven by a mission to image the world every day, and make change visible, accessible and actionable. Founded in 2010 by three NASA scientists, Planet designs, builds, and operates the largest Earth observation fleet of imaging satellites. Planet provides mission-critical data, advanced insights, and software solutions to customers comprising the world's leading agriculture, forestry, intelligence, education and finance companies and government agencies, enabling users to simply and effectively derive unique value from satellite imagery. Planet is a public benefit corporation listed on the New York Stock Exchange as PL. To learn more visit and follow us on X (formerly Twitter) or tune in to HBO's 'Wild Wild Space.' Forward-looking Statements Certain statements contained in this press release are 'forward-looking statements' about Planet within the meaning of the securities laws, including statements about Planet's future cash flows and revenue, Planet's strategic partnerships, the expansion of the high resolution capacity of Planet's fleet and the delivery of such capacity to Planet customers, and Planet's future growth in new and existing markets. Such statements, which are not of historical fact, involve estimates, assumptions, judgments and uncertainties. There are a number of factors that could cause actual results or outcomes to differ materially from those addressed in the forward-looking statements. Such factors are detailed in Planet's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Planet does not undertake an obligation to update its forward-looking statements to reflect future events, except as required by applicable law.
Business Wire
6 days ago
- Business
- Business Wire
Planet Labs to Host Business Momentum Update
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Planet Labs PBC (NYSE: PL), a leading provider of daily Earth imaging and geospatial solutions, today announced it will host a press conference to provide an update on recent business momentum in the Defense & Intelligence sector. What: "Business Momentum Update' Who: Co-founder & CEO Will Marshall, President & CFO Ashley Johnson and additional executives will deliver remarks and be available for questions. When: Tuesday, July 1, 2025, at 9:00 AM PT Where: Virtual press conference via webcast. Details on how to access the webcast will be provided upon RSVP. RSVP: Media interested in attending the virtual press conference must RSVP to be admitted. All questions will be taken and responded to in English. Attendees can pre-register for the press conference at You will receive your access details via email. The webcast replay will be available at the same URL approximately two hours following the event, and will remain accessible for playback. For media inquiries, contact press@ About Planet Labs PBC Planet is a leading provider of global, daily satellite imagery and geospatial solutions. Planet is driven by a mission to image the world every day, and make change visible, accessible and actionable. Founded in 2010 by three NASA scientists, Planet designs, builds, and operates the largest Earth observation fleet of imaging satellites. Planet provides mission-critical data, advanced insights, and software solutions to customers comprising the world's leading agriculture, forestry, intelligence, education and finance companies and government agencies, enabling users to simply and effectively derive unique value from satellite imagery. Planet is a public benefit corporation listed on the New York Stock Exchange as PL. To learn more visit and follow us on X (formerly Twitter) or tune in to HBO's 'Wild Wild Space'.
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First Post
7 days ago
- Politics
- First Post
Inside Pickaxe Mountain, Iran's new nuclear lair that could evade US bombs
Iran has been digging tunnels beneath the Pickaxe mountain, which is just a few minutes from the Natanz nuclear facility. The facility under the peak, also known as Kūh-e Kolang Gaz Lā, is believed to be at a depth of 100 metres. This could reduce the effectiveness of the US bunker-buster bomb that hit three key Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend read more This satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows construction on a new underground facility at Iran's Natanz nuclear site near Natanz, Iran, on April 14, 2023. File Photo/AP Iran is constructing a nuclear facility that is so deep that even the United States' bunker buster bomb may not be able to destroy it. The new site comes to the spotlight after American B-2 stealth jets dropped 30,000lb bunker-busting bombs on Iran's three key nuclear facilities — Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan — over the weekend. While US President Donald Trump claims that the attack 'obliterated' Iran's nuclear programme, Tehran reportedly asserted that it shifted the key nuclear material before the American strikes. Experts believe Iran could have moved out some 400kg of enriched uranium before the US bombing. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD They say Kūh-e Kolang Gaz Lā, or 'Pickaxe Mountain', may be the perfect place for Iran to hide its nuclear materials. Let's take a closer look. Pickaxe mountain – Iran's new nuclear lair Iran is reportedly constructing deep into Pickaxe Mountain, which is just about 145 km south of Fordow and only a few minutes from the Natanz nuclear facility in central Isfahan province. Tehran has secretly expanded and reinforced the site in the past four years, as per The Telegraph report. In 2023, after analysing photos and videos from Planet Labs PBC, Associated Press (AP) reported that Iran was digging tunnels into the Kūh-e Kolang Gaz Lā. Pickaxe, a peak in the mountains surrounding Natanz, is over 5,000 feet high. Iran has dug four entrances into the mountainside – two on the eastern side and two on the western side. Each tunnel entrance is six meters in width and eight meters tall, as per AP. Fordow, considered the 'crown jewels' of Iran's nuclear enrichment programme , has only two tunnel entrances. Reports say that Iran's facility beneath the Pickaxe Mountain could be built at a depth of 100 metres, compared with Fordow's 60-90 metres depth. This would reduce the effectiveness of the US' bunker buster bomb, which was developed to target underground facilities. After Western intelligence exposed Iran's secretly built Fordow nuclear facility in 2009, the US built the GBU-57 bomb, which can penetrate at least 60 meters (200 feet) of earth before detonating. This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows dirt over the underground Natanz enrichment facility in Iran before US strikes, Sunday, June 15, 2025. AP 'So the depth of the facility is a concern because it would be much harder for us. It would be much harder to destroy using conventional weapons, such as like a typical bunker buster bomb,' Steven De La Fuente, a research associate at James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, told AP in 2023. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Experts worry that, given the size of the project at Pickaxe Mountain, Iran could use the facility not just to build centrifuges but also to enrich uranium. ALSO READ: Amid shaky truce, where is Iran's enriched uranium enough to make 10 nuclear bombs? Did Iran shift nuclear material to Pickaxe Mountain? Despite Trump's claim that American attacks 'obliterated' Iran's nuclear facilities, evidence suggests otherwise. A leaked initial classified assessment reportedly found that the US strike set Iran's nuclear programme back by only months at most. The White House has slammed the 'flat-out wrong' assessment leaked by 'a low-level loser in the intelligence community'. As per The Telegraph, 16 lorries were pictured outside Fordow before the US strikes on the weekend. An expert on Iran's nuclear programme told the British daily that Iran had shifted much of its highly enriched uranium to a secret location before America's attack. Sima Shine, who has worked within the Israeli military establishment for 30 years, said Tehran had 'hundreds if not thousands' of advanced centrifuges capable of producing weapons-grade uranium. In April, Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said that when he asked Iran about what was happening underneath the Pickaxe mountain, he was told to mind his own business. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'Since it is obvious it is in a place where numerous and important activities related to the programme are taking place, we're asking them, what is this for? They are telling us, it's none of your business,' he said. Grossi said it 'cannot be excluded' that the tunnels would contain undeclared material. Experts have raised an alarm that Iran is likely increasing its enriched uranium production at the Pickaxe facility. This site could be more secure than the other facilities attacked by the US and Israel, The Sun reported, ciitng experts. Ben Taleblu, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Financial Times: 'A key question is whether Iran will, or maybe already has, secreted fissile material into Pickaxe or some other unknown facility.' According to the Institute for Science and International Security, Iran could 'secretly deploy several thousand advanced centrifuges in the new tunnel complex' at Pickaxe mountain. This would allow Iran to continue its enrichment activities even if known facilities were destroyed. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD With inputs from agencies
Irish Examiner
25-06-2025
- Politics
- Irish Examiner
Comparing US Iran strike to Hiroshima, Trump plays down US intelligence report
US President Donald Trump compared the impact of American strikes on Iranian nuclear sites to the end of World War Two on Wednesday, arguing that the damage was severe even though available intelligence reports were inconclusive. His comments followed reports from several media outlets on Tuesday revealing that the US Defense Intelligence Agency had assessed that the strikes had set back Iran's nuclear program by just a few months, despite Trump and administration officials saying it had been obliterated. The intelligence was . . . very inconclusive," Trump told reporters at a NATO summit on Wednesday while meeting with Secretary General Mark Rutte. "The intelligence says, 'We don't know, it could have been very severe'. That's what the intelligence says. So I guess that's correct, but I think we can take the 'we don't know.' It was very severe. It was obliteration." This satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows Iran's Natanz nuclear site near Natanz, Iran, on April 14, 2023. File Picture: Planet Labs PBC via AP The Trump administration has not disputed that the DIA assessment exists, but Trump described it as preliminary. In a series of at-times testy exchanges at a press conference later in the day, Trump sharply criticized journalists for their reporting on the assessment. This ended a war in a different way He suggested the reports were an attack against the pilots who flew the bombing mission over the weekend targeting Iran's key nuclear sites. Trump said the US strikes were responsible for ending the war between Israel and Iran. "When you look at Hiroshima, if you look at Nagasaki, that ended a war, too," Trump said, referring to a pair of US nuclear strikes on Japan in 1945 that essentially ended World War II. "This ended a war in a different way." Success of Iran strikes critical for Trump Trump has an uneasy relationship with the US intelligence community, and the success of the strikes is politically critical to him. His right-leaning supporters had argued loudly beforehand that such military intervention was inconsistent with Trump's domestic-focused "Make America Great Again" agenda and his promise to avoid foreign entanglements. Trump has countered by insisting that Iran must never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon - a goal that an accurate, decisive attack would support. He was flanked at both appearances by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who also cast doubt on the reliability of the DIA assessment. Hegseth in particular cast much of his fury at the news media. US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth. Picture: AP Photo/Alex Brandon "When you actually look at the report - by the way, it was a top secret report - it was preliminary, it was low-confidence," Hegseth said in the appearance alongside Rutte. "This is a political motive here." He said the FBI was investigating a potential leak. Rubio suggested that those responsible for sharing the report had mischaracterized it, saying: "This is the game they play." - Retuers Read More Nato commits to higher spending sought by Trump and mutual defence
IOL News
25-06-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
There is no one-and-done on Iran
A satellite photo shows the Isfahan nuclear enrichment facility in central Iran after US strikes. Image: Planet Labs PBC / AFP) Marc Champion Donald Trump's decision to bomb Iran's hard-to-reach nuclear site at Fordow couldn't have worked out better. Operationally, it was flawless, and the response it drew from Iran was the best the US president could have hoped for - bloodless and de-escalatory by design. Most important of all, Trump then tried to bounce Israel and Tehran into a ceasefire. Kudos where it's due. And yet, this is not over. There will be more tough decisions for the White House to make, with profound implications for the cause of nuclear non-proliferation. The problem here isn't that the ceasefire announced on Monday night was breached within hours. That's hardly unusual and, in this case, there's a good chance it takes hold over the coming days. Israel has run through most if not all of its target list; Iran is running low on ways to meaningfully respond without putting the regime's survival at risk. Even so, we aren't where Trump says we are. Trump says his ceasefire will hold for all time, but there will be no forever-peace between the Islamic Republic and Israel. No doubt, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his politically powerful generals will take time to regroup and lick their wounds. They've suffered a severe military humiliation, and there will be some form of reckoning at home. But hostility to Israel is in their political DNA. There is no one-and-done here. Nor has Iran's nuclear programme been wiped from the face of the earth, never to be rebuilt, as Trump claims. Let's say all the enrichment equipment at the sites that the US and Israel bombed over the last 10 days have indeed been destroyed. That's as-yet unknown except to the Iranians, but it seems very plausible. The point, however, has always been that Iran has the know-how and capacity to replace whatever gets destroyed. We also don't know the whereabouts of Iran's stockpile of uranium enriched to 60%, a short step to weapons grade. Nor can even Mossad be sure there are no sites that were missed because they simply weren't known. These are just some of the reasons for which US presidents resisted bombing Iran's nuclear programme in the past, preferring to achieve delays and visibility through diplomacy. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad Loading US President Donald Trump (Right) and Vice President JD Vance (Left) in the Situation Room of the White House on June 21 as the US military attacked three Iranian nuclear sites, including the underground uranium enrichment facility at Fordow. "We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran," Trump said on his Truth Social platform. Experts disagree. Image: WHITE HOUSE / AFP In other words, the risk that Iran acquires a nuclear arsenal remains. It will continue until the day that either this regime or a successor decides not to pursue one. And right now, there's no doubt - even if hardline officials weren't saying so in public - that the argument for Iran to get itself a nuclear deterrent has never been more compelling. Nobody, after all, is bombing North Korea. The attractions of acquiring a bomb have been clear for a long time, and not just to Iran. That's why the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or NPT, exists. The system had its share of failure - North Korea, India, Pakistan and Israel itself - but granted that the technology to build nuclear weapons has long been within the scope of most of the treaty's 191 signatories, and three of the four outliers never signed up, the list is mercifully short. The NPT's primary tool has been the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Though disparaged by many hawks in Washington and Israel, this has become a unique depository of expertise and provided the means to keep eyes on Iran's program. Of course, Iran could and did avoid full compliance, and the threat of force always hovered in the background. It also took national intelligence agencies to expose that the Iranians even had an enrichment programme for the IAEA to monitor, in 2002. Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), arrives for the Board of Governors meeting at the agency's headquarters in Vienna this month. American strikes on Iran's nuclear programme have made the agency's work substantially more difficult. Image: Joe Klamar / AFP Nonetheless, the NPT and IAEA have together provided a constraining framework for proliferation that would be sorely missed. In a might-makes-right, '(name-your-nation) First' era, it's already in trouble. It may not be able to survive, much as Cold War arms-control treaties have been abandoned, one after the other, until today only one - New Start - remains, and it expires next year. The choices Trump makes now will play a big role in either accelerating or slowing the NPT's demise. One route would rely on intelligence agencies and military action to counter proliferation, in place of diplomacy. This was always the implication of Trump's decision to collapse the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. It's also the scenario Vice President JD Vance sketched out on Monday, when he warned that if the Iranians 'want to build a nuclear weapon in the future, they're going to have to deal with a very, very powerful American military again.' In Gaza, Israel called this approach 'mowing the lawn,' but as the tragedy of Oct. 7, 2023, showed, that's no guarantee of success. And how many lawns does the US want to mow? Relying solely on the threat of force also assumes that Iran doesn't learn a few critical lessons from the drubbing it just received. The first is to clean house, rooting out the Israeli intelligence assets that made its airstrikes so devastating. Expect a period of extreme regime paranoia. A second is to buy a much more capable air-defense system. A third will be to replenish its missile and drone arsenals. Absent a diplomatic track, there will also be no incentive for Iran to allow further international inspections. It's already accusing the IAEA of complicity with the US and Israeli assaults. Other countries will draw their own conclusions. The agreement was based on a grand bargain in which the existing five nuclear powers were supposed to disarm, while non-nuclear nations agreed to stay that way. Disarmament went a considerable distance, but in recent years has been thrown into reverse. US actions in first reneging on the 2015 deal with Iran, and then bombing it, won't inspire confidence. The alternative path Trump could take is to restart nuclear negotiations in the clear expectation that the Iranians won't simply capitulate. There will have to be something in it for them. That means Trump and his team will face many of the same questions as they did before what's been, in reality, just the hottest stage to date in a long-running Iran-Israel war. Those include whether to lift at least some economic sanctions and whether to accept a heavily monitored civilian grade enrichment programme, limited to 3.5% fuel. Of course the Islamic Republic could collapse, to be replaced by something less fanatical. That's an outcome that very few would mourn, but you don't plan for luck. Trump needs to assume that Iran will now learn, rearm and refocus its nuclear program to produce a weapon as quickly and quietly as possible. Diplomacy and inspections remain the best and least hazardous way to prevent that. | Bloomberg Marc Champion is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe, Russia and the Middle East. He was previously Istanbul bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal.
