PlanetScope

PlanetScope is one of the satellite constellation operated by Planet. It is now possible to purchase, order and access PlanetScope data using Sentinel Hub (SH).

About PlanetScope data

Highlights

• Almost daily coverage worldwide
• 3.7-4.1 m pixel size (resampled to 3 m)
• Blue, Green, Red, Near Infrared (+Red Edge and more in near future)

Mission information

PlanetScope satellite constellation consists of more than 130 small satellites called Doves. Each Dove satellite is a CubeSat made of three cubic units and thus measures only 10 cm x 10 cm x 30 cm. The satellites are launched in groups, which constantly improves mission's characteristics such as revisit times, spatial and spectral resolutions. The constellation is constantly "on" and does not require an acquisition planning.

PlanetScope data is an excellent source for vegetation monitoring. It complements Sentinel-2 data with better spatial resolution and better temporal coverage, which is especially important in cloudy areas as it increases the chance of acquiring a cloudless image.

Basic facts

More information:

• https://www.planet.com/products/planet-imagery/
• https://assets.planet.com/docs/Planet_Combined_Imagery_Product_Specs_letter_screen.pdf

Attribution and use

The PlanetScope products are released under the license available here.

Purchasing the data

Note: If you already have you Planet's api key you can skip this section and continue with Ordering PlanetScope Data.

The process of purchasing of PlanetScope data in Sentinel Hub goes as follows:

• Check the pricing and conditions. If you would like to buy bigger area send us an e-mail and we will prepare a custom offer.
• Go to the "Billing" section in your SH Dashboard and buy the Planet Scope plan.
• You will get an invitation from Planet to sign EULA, after which you will receive your Planet's api key.

Once you have your Planet's api key you can proceed to Ordering PlanetScope Data.

Additional info

• Vouchers for non-commercial use available, sponsored by ESA, follow this link.
• Volume discounts possible for large users. Contact us.
• Existing Planet users can use the data through Sentinel Hub using their own credentials.
• Minimum area per order is 0.01 km².
• Maximum number of items per order is 500. Orders listing more than 500 itemIds have to be split, and subscriptions must be used instead of search-based orders that match more than 500 items.

Ordering PlanetScope Data

For ordering of PlanetScope data you will need your Planet api key. To order PlanetScope data, please use our Third Party Data Import API. Data can be ordered individually or by subscribing to all data that match your criteria.

productBundle parameter

PlanetScope data can be ordered through SH either as scaled top of the atmosphere reflectance or surface reflectance, according to the requested asset type. Furthermore, ordering usable data mask bands (UDM2) is recommended, as the user gets all the available PlanetScope bands. The cost does not increase when including UDM2 bands. The value of the productBundle parameter specifies what will be ordered:

Subscriptions currently only support the surface reflectance asset type and the UDM2 bands are always included, therefore, the productBundle parameter in a subscription must be analytic_sr_udm2.

harmonizeTo parameter

Harmonization tool is applied by default. User can turn it off by setting "harmonizeTo" to "NONE" when placing an order. Harmonization is not supported for analytic_sr asset type.

When using subscriptions, currently only the surface reflectance asset type is supported, therefore harmonizeTo must be set to NONE.

Other parameters

Other parameters are set by SH and cannot be changed by the user.

More information:

• https://developers.planet.com/docs/orders/tools-reference/
• https://developers.planet.com/docs/orders/product-bundles-reference/

Note: If you would need any other PlanetScope product, please contact us.

Once your order is successfully finished the ordered data will be available in one of your BYOC collections. The tiles in the collection will correspond to PlanetScope scenes. To access the data you will need the id of this collection.

Accessing PlanetScope Data

Accessing of the PlanetScope data is similar to accessing any other BYOC data. All processing and filtering options listed there can be used. However, the settings specific for accessing of PlantScope data are listed below.

Endpoint Locations

Filtering Options

collectionId

Use the id of the BYOC collection into which your PlanetScope data was delivered as a value of parameter input.data.dataFilter.collectionId in the process API requests. See BYOC data access for more information.

Available Bands and Data

This chapter will explain the bands and data which can be set in the evalscript input object. Any string listed in the column Name can be an element of the input.bands array in your evalscript.

* The UDM2 bands are available only for orders where the productBundle field is set to analytic_udm2 or analytic_sr_udm2.

** dataMask has no source resolution as it is calculated for each output pixel.

Units

The data values for each band in your custom script are presented in the units as specified here. In case more than one unit is available for a given band, you may optionally set the value of input.units in your evalscript setup function to one of the values in the Sentinel Hub Units column. Doing so will present data in that unit. The Sentinel Hub units parameter combines the physical quantity and corresponding units of measurement values. As such, some names more closely resemble physical quantities, others resemble units of measurement.

The Source Format specifies how and with what precision the digital numbers (DN) from which the unit is derived are encoded. Bands requested in DN units contain the pixel values which are the result of ordering and preprocessing the data as explained in the chapter Ordering PlanetScope Data. Note that resampling may produce interpolated values. DN is also used whenever a band is derived computationally (like dataMask); such bands can be identified by having DN units and N/A source format.

For PlanetScope bands, DN are the default and only unit. Reflectance values can be obtained for bands B1 - B4 using the simple formula: reflectance = DN / 10000.

The Typical Range indicates what values are common for a given band and unit, however outliers can be expected.

Mosaicking

All mosaicking types are supported.

Examples

PlanetScope examples