jbsliverer
3 years ago
Leading-Edge Science Using Planet Data Presented At AGU 2021
Tanya Harrison | December 10, 2021
https://www.planet.com/pulse/leading-edge-science-using-planet-data-presented-at-agu-2021/
It’s that time of year again: Nearly 30,000 geoscientists from around the world gather every December for the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, the largest of its kind. Planet is always excited to see what innovative science applications researchers have discovered using our data! This year, 70 abstracts were submitted from researchers accessing data through pathways such as our Education and Research program, the NASA Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program, and Norway’s International Climate and Forests Initiative (NICFI). The conference will run as a hybrid virtual and in-person event this year from December 13 through 17.
Some of the highlights of presentations this year featuring Planet data:
The combined high spatial and temporal resolution of PlanetScope provides the unprecedented ability to perform phenological analysis of ecosystems at the individual tree level from orbit. Yasmin Fitts and colleagues at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and GET Géosciences Environnement Toulouse did such an analysis across the Sahel in West Africa.
A team led by Hannah Friedrich at the University of Arizona used sensor fusion across PlanetScope, Landsat, Sentinel-2, and MODIS, along with radar and passive microwave data, to perform automated flood mapping via machine learning.
Utilizing PlanetScope Basemaps via the NICI program, Nyein Soe Thwal of the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center and colleagues developed a transfer learning approach for automated mapping sugarcane in Thailand—the world’s second largest exporter of the resource.
Sarah Wegmueller of the University of Wisconsin Madison is giving an invited talk on a time-series-based early detection and monitoring system that uses PlanetScope and Sentinel-2 satellite imagery to map abnormal mortality in forests.
Anders Bjork of University of Copenhagen will discuss mapping over new land being exposed as the Greenland ice sheet retreats due to climate change.
Planet is convening an entire session on data fusion for Earth observation science.
Additionally, a few Planeteers will be presenting at the conference:
I’ll be giving an invited talk about how U.S. federally-funded researchers can access Planet data through NASA’s Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program.
Rasmus Houborg, Principal Geospatial Fusion Engineer, will be presenting a poster on Planet Fusion monitoring.
Our exciting recently-announced Carbon Mapper project will be presented by Sara Shivers, Product Manager, Hyperspectral Imaging.
Solutions Architect Samapriya Roy will be discussing details of the NICFI program.
You can view the entire scientific program for the AGU Fall Meeting online. Be sure to check out the talks and/or posters mentioned here, and browse the schedule for more amazing science in the works that will help us better understand our ever-evolving Earth.
jbsliverer
3 years ago
Seeking Alpha did a condensed piece today, but a fuller text came out last Fri with the news;
https://www.planet.com/pulse/planet-to-acquire-vandersat-to-deliver-advanced-agriculture-data-products-to-customers/
Planet To Acquire VanderSat To Deliver Advanced Agriculture Data Products To Customers
Robbie Schingler | November 10, 2021
We are excited to announce that Planet has entered into an agreement to acquire VanderSat, a leading provider of advanced earth data and analytics. Vandersat’s innovative products help customers better measure and understand water management and crop health in major markets. Planet intends to leverage VanderSat’s technologies and products in further pursuit of bringing to market next-generation solutions that combine the best of commercial and public satellite data to provide clear and actionable information to help industries, non-profits, and governments around the world.
VanderSat has world-class expertise in providing insights to customers by drawing from NASA, ESA and JAXA satellite data, and has built a suite of novel products that report on key conditions on the Earth’s surface, like soil moisture, land surface temperature, vegetation optical depth, and biomass. VanderSat’s unique algorithms deliver daily, global data products with great accuracy, unhindered by changing cloud-cover and atmospheric conditions.
“VanderSat is a mission-driven company with the goal to serve one billion hectares of land in 2024. By joining Planet, our mission and impact will be dramatically accelerated and together, we aim to reach that goal in 2022,” said Dr. Thijs van Leeuwen, CEO of VanderSat.
“We’re thrilled to be welcoming the VanderSat team to Planet. We expect VanderSat’s analytics and industry expertise will help Planet provide solutions ‘up the stack’ to bridge the gap from complex remote-sensing science to products that offer improved data to the ecosystem and our customers. And when one combines their new data with Planet’s, the value is far greater than the sum of its parts,” said Will Marshall, CEO and Co-Founder of Planet. “We believe VanderSat’s products will add value in Planet’s core verticals of agriculture, and civil government, and will help us open up to others such as insurance and banking, to help grow our business.”
At Planet, one of our goals is to bridge the gap between real-world problems and the complexity of remote-sensing science. VanderSat is another step towards that goal with their advanced analytics. We believe their products will accelerate and expand our position in one of our most important verticals – agriculture – and help mature our offerings for others such as insurance, civil government, and finance. For example, easier-to-consume data can enable modeling to help financial institutions and insurers quantify climate impacts on water availability and crop production.
Adding VanderSat’s unique, all-weather data products to Planet’s high-cadence and high-resolution global monitoring will bring even greater value to users in agriculture, civil government and insurance by providing them with richer insights and more precise measurements. Plus, Planet’s unique platform and integrations will make these products more accessible than ever before.
The VanderSat team is based in Haarlem, Netherlands and will further increase Planet’s commitment to the European ecosystem. The entire team, including their founder Dr. Richard de Jeu and CEO Dr. van Leeuwen, will be joining Planet.
Under the agreement, Planet is set to acquire VanderSat for approximately $28 million, which consists of $18 million in shares of Class A common stock of Planet Labs PBC, valued at a per share price equal to the closing price of Class A common stock of Planet Labs PBC on the NYSE on the last trading day prior to the consummation of the acquisition of VanderSat, and approximately $10 million in cash.
The transaction is expected to close in Q4 2021 and is subject to customary closing conditions, as well as the closing of Planet’s business combination with dMY Technology Group, Inc. IV (“dMY IV”). This will be Planet’s fourth acquisition (BlackBridge ‘15, Terra Bella ‘17, and Boundless ‘19).
We are thrilled to welcome VanderSat to the Planet family!
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