Planet Opens Berlin Satellite Plant Scaling to 60 Satellites a Year

Planet Labs GmbH opened a satellite manufacturing facility in Berlin on September 22, 2026, hosting Katherina Reiche, Germany’s Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, at the 5,700-square-meter site in the city’s Mitte district. Production of the company’s 300 kg class, 30-cm resolution class Pelican satellites is scheduled to commence this autumn, with the first satellite scheduled for completion before the end of 2026 and the facility able to scale to up to 60 satellites per year, according to Planet’s announcement.

Announced less than a year ago, the project has reached facility handover and cleanroom fit-out. Satellites will be built, tested, and shipped from the single Berlin location, reducing the path from parts to orbit. Alongside satellite production, the facility will house corporate functions including mission operations, IT, legal, marketing, human resources, and sales.

Production and Berlin Workforce

Planet will add 70 employees to its existing team of nearly 150 in Berlin, the company said. The city has served as Planet’s European base for more than 10 years, operating as a technical hub with a mission operations center coordinating the company’s global fleet of hundreds of satellites, along with software development, imagery processing, and quality control.

“Today I’m thrilled to give a first look at Planet’s world-class manufacturing center and the future of Planet in Berlin, Germany, and Europe,” said Will Marshall, co-founder and CEO of Planet. “Planet has built and successfully launched 688 satellites in 15 years, second in the world in total satellites – and we’re bringing that manufacturing prowess here.”

“Europe needs its own eyes in space. In an age of strategic rivalry and growing uncertainty, satellite intelligence is no longer a luxury—it is a prerequisite for security, resilience and genuine strategic autonomy,” Reiche said. She added that Planet’s investment in Berlin is more than a vote of confidence in the city, saying it helps turn Europe’s ambition for sovereign access to space-based intelligence into operational reality.

Martin Polak, Managing Director of Planet Labs Germany, said production will begin less than one year after the company announced its vision for a satellite facility in Berlin.

Planet stated that it provides sovereign satellite services for countries and can deliver them quickly. The company cited a German-funded contract under which it delivered dedicated satellite capacity in support of European peace and security within two months of contract signature, and the delivery of Sweden’s first sovereign satellite within four months, which it said accelerated that programme by four years.

Launch Schedule and European Footprint

The first Berlin-built Pelican satellites completed this year are scheduled to launch on an Isar Aerospace Spectrum launch vehicle in early 2027. Under a strategic launch agreement announced July 2, 2026, Isar Aerospace will launch one Pelican on Spectrum from its dedicated launch complex at Andøya Space, scheduled as early as late 2026. With both satellite and rocket built in Germany, the companies said the planned mission would be a national first for the country, with a stated goal of flying within less than 12 months of the agreement. Isar Aerospace is ramping up manufacturing of Spectrum at a 40,000-square-meter factory near Munich, where it plans to build up to 40 launch vehicles per year.

Planet said Europe is home to more than 30% of its global workforce, with offices in Berlin, Haarlem, Ljubljana, Graz, and London, and Berlin serving as its primary base of operations in Europe. The company’s ground station network across Germany, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Iceland downlinks nearly 50% of all satellite data globally.

Planet first announced the Berlin facility on September 25, 2025, stating that the capital investment was expected to exceed eight figures and that the site would double overall production capacity of the Pelican fleet while manufacturing continued at its San Francisco headquarters. The company said that decision followed growth of its European business, including a multi-year €240 million agreement in collaboration with the German government and a key contract with NATO. Planet was also awarded a German Federal Ministry of the Interior Satellite Services tender on September 15, 2026, under which the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy will coordinate and distribute tasked imagery and geospatial analytics to German civil government authorities, with a maximum possible value of €25 million over five years including options. Planet’s relationship with the agency dates to 2021, and its satellite data supports more than 400 German federal institutions.