System characterization report on Planet’s SuperDove

Executive Summary

This report addresses system characterization of Planet’s SuperDove and is part of a series of system characterization reports produced and delivered by the U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Cal/Val Center of Excellence. These reports present and detail the methodology and procedures for characterization; present technical and operational information about the specific sensing system being evaluated; and provide a summary of test measurements, data retention practices, data analysis results, and conclusions.

Since 2013, Planet has launched more than 360 Dove 3U CubeSats, where U stands for 10-centimeter (cm) x 10-cm x 10-cm stowed dimensions, each weighing about 5.8 kilograms. Since 2015, all Dove satellites have had four-band imagers with about a 3-meter (m) pixel ground sample distance. Since 2016, all Doves have been launched into Sun-synchronous orbits varying from 474 to 524 kilometers, with inclinations between 97 and 98 degrees. The Dove series satellites do not have orbit maintenance capabilities; thus, their orbits decay slowly over time, contributing to shorter lifetimes of about 3 years. More information on Planet satellites and sensors is available in the “2020 Joint Agency Commercial Imagery Evaluation—Remote Sensing Satellite Compendium” and from the manufacturer at https://www.planet.com/.

The Earth Resources Observation and Science Cal/Val Center of Excellence system characterization team completed data analyses to characterize the geometric (interior and exterior), radiometric, and spatial performances. Results of these analyses indicate that SuperDove has a band-to-band geometric performance in the range of −1.701 m (−0.567 pixel) to 1.173 m (0.391 pixel) in easting and −4.950 m (−1.650 pixels) to 6.051 m (2.017 pixels) in northing, an image-to-image geometric performance of −1.17 m (−0.39 pixel) to 23.45 m (7.82 pixels) in easting and −10.61 m (−3.54 pixels) to −4.43 m (−1.48 pixels) in northing offset in comparison to Sentinel-2, a radiometric performance in the range of −0.043 to 0.020 in offset and 0.812 to 1.246 in slope, and a spatial performance in the range of 3.59 to 3.70 pixels for full width at half maximum, with a modulation transfer function at a Nyquist frequency in the range of 0.005 to 0.008.