Tanager: Cutting-Edge Hyperspectral from Orbit

If you aren’t familiar with Planet’s Tanager mission, it’s our visible to shortwave infrared (VSWIR) hyperspectral constellation. Tanager-1 (launched August 2024) carries a high-precision Dyson imaging spectrometer onboard Planet’s next-generation smallsat bus. Tanager provides high spectral resolution (~5 nm) across the full 380–2500 nm VSWIR spectral range. This broad spectral range and fine resolution allows users to uncover phenomena invisible to the naked eye, offering deeper, more actionable insights into the composition and health of our planet’s diverse landscapes. Tanager provides agile, taskable operations, flexible revisit capabilities, and targeted monitoring – all built on a strong scientific foundation shared with NASA-JPL’s EMIT instrument through common design and processing heritage. Our on-orbit performance assessment of Tanager-1 demonstrates the data are spatially sharp, radiometrically accurate, and have high spectral fidelity throughout our operational range. 

Unlocking Earth's Potential: Diverse Landscapes, Powerful Applications

We’ve made a first set of Tanager basic radiance datasets available for exploration on the Planet Open Data STAC under a CC BY 4.0 license. These basic radiance images are collected in our standard sensitivity mode and are georeferenced, but not orthoprojected. We anticipate growing this collection throughout the year with more scenes, examples in various sensitivity modes, and including our surface reflectance data products once available. We expect to expand this collection throughout the year by adding more scenes and examples across various sensitivity modes. Our surface reflectance data products will also be included once they become available.

The newly released radiance datasets offer samples for a wide array of high-impact applications across various landscapes:

• Agriculture: Optimize crop management, detect early signs of disease or stress, and assess soil conditions to enhance agricultural productivity and sustainability.
• Energy & Mining: Accurately map mineral composition, identify potential resource sites, and monitor environmental impacts with spectral precision.
• Snow & Ice: Observe dynamic changes in snowpack and ice coverage, crucial for understanding evolving water resources, climate patterns, and glacial dynamics.
• Urban Areas: Gain detailed insights into urban development and infrastructure for planning, resource management, and understanding the impact of urbanization on the environment.
• Natural Lands: Monitor plant health, land degradation, and ecosystem changes to help track biodiversity, inform management decisions, and support conservation.
• Coastal Zones & Water Bodies: Monitor and analyze water quality, detect harmful algal blooms, and assess conditions to provide vital, timely information for aquatic/marine conservation and coastal zone management.

Driving a Sustainable Future

By making these high-fidelity Tanager radiance datasets openly accessible, Planet is accelerating scientific discovery, fostering innovation, and empowering a new generation of solutions for our most pressing environmental and economic challenges. We are committed to contributing to a more sustainable future for all, and our hyperspectral imagery is one way we can support this.

In the future, we plan to add Tanager core imagery to our Sandbox on the Planet Insights Platform. The Sandbox is your essential gateway to experiment with Planet's powerful data and analytics tools through our easy-to-use APIs. While you await Tanager's arrival there, you can already explore a variety of other exciting Planet data products and capabilities on the Insights Platform.

Ready to see what you've been missing? Explore the new Tanager radiance datasets today on the Planet Open Data STAC! Learn more about the advanced capabilities of our Tanager hyperspectral offering on the Planet Hyperspectral website.

FAQs

What license is the Tanager STAC data released under and how can I properly attribute the source?

The data included in this Tanager STAC Catalogue (the "Licensed Material") is made available under the Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Use the following attribution for any redistribution of the Licensed Materials, "Tanager STAC Data, available at www.planet.com/data/stac © [YEAR] Planet Labs PBC. All Rights Reserved", and preface with "Adapted from..." for any Adapted Material. Where [YEAR] means the year in which the data was captured by the Tanager satellite, as indicated for each data collection.

How can I task Tanager to acquire data for my specific region of interest (ROI)?

While the Open Data STAC provides a selection of archived Tanager radiance datasets, direct tasking of Tanager satellites for custom acquisitions typically requires a commercial agreement. Planet's high-resolution tasking capabilities are part of our paid plans. If your work requires specific Tanager collections over your ROI, please reach out to our Sales team (sales@planet.com). They can discuss pricing options and tailor a solution that fits your needs.

Is Tanager data available in my Education and Research license?

Tanager data is not yet part of our E&R license offering. If you are interested in gaining access to Tanager archive data for E&R, please reach out to your customer success or sales representative to let them know!

Is Tanager data available through NASA or ESA programs?

Tanager data is not currently available through programs like NASA’s Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program or ESA’s Third Party Missions. However, if you believe Tanager data could support or enhance your research, we encourage you to reach out to your respective program contacts to express your interest. Demonstrating demand from the research community can help inform future data acquisition decisions, and your feedback plays an important role in shaping how these programs prioritize access to emerging commercial datasets.