Planet has signed a multi-launch agreement with Stoke Space for flights aboard the Nova rocket, adding another provider to its satellite deployment plans. Announced on November 9, 2026, the agreement gives Planet primary-payload rights and the ability to specify launch dates and orbital planes. Missions are planned from Space Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The arrangement supports maintenance and expansion of Planet’s Earth-observation constellations. Its mission-planning provisions connect the purchase of launch capacity to where the satellites will operate after deployment. Planet is buying a sequence of flights with a defined role in setting their destination and timing.
Launch Terms Connected to Satellite Operations
An orbital plane is the plane in which a satellite travels around Earth. Its orientation helps determine the spacecraft’s ground coverage and the timing of observations. Placing satellites in selected planes is part of arranging a constellation, particularly when its service depends on repeatedly observing locations.
The distinction between buying transportation and specifying a mission is described in New Space Economy’s explanation of launch services business models. A launch purchase encompasses a destination, integration work, and a deployment profile. A multi-launch agreement organizes successive deliveries within the same commercial relationship, with individual flights serving the customer’s operational objectives.
For Planet, the newly announced contract combines those recurring purchases with primary-payload rights. That gives its constellation deployment requirements a defined place in mission planning. The company also describes the agreement as part of diversifying its launch providers.
Nova’s Reusable Design
Stoke’s Nova Block 2 specifications describe a fully reusable vehicle designed to carry 15,000 kilograms to low Earth orbit. The company lists a five-meter payload fairing and 4,000 kilograms of capacity to geostationary transfer orbit. These are vehicle design capabilities; the Planet agreement concerns future flights.
Nova’s upper stage combines a metallic, regeneratively cooled heat shield with its hydrogen-and-oxygen propulsion system. Regenerative cooling transfers heat into flowing coolant rather than relying solely on material that is consumed during heating. Stoke integrates the thermal-protection and propulsion arrangements as part of its approach to returning and reusing the upper stage.
Stoke identifies its Andromeda Block 2 engine as a closed-expander-cycle design. In an expander cycle, heat absorbed by the fuel helps drive machinery that supplies propellants to the engine. The company’s published design figures include 440 seconds of specific impulse, a measure of how effectively a rocket uses propellant.
The launch announcement places Nova Pathfinder orbital demonstrations in 2027, followed by Block 2 operations. It describes the Planet flights within that developing launch program. Reuse covers the launch vehicle’s operation across successive missions, with returned hardware prepared for additional flights.
The Imaging Systems Behind the Launch Purchase
Planet’s Pelican imagery documentation illustrates the connection between constellation deployment and an Earth-observation service. Pelican is designed for high-resolution, rapidly tasked imaging. Its first-generation commercial imagery became available in 2025, and its orthorectified products are sampled at 50 centimeters.
Orthorectification adjusts imagery for terrain and viewing geometry so that features can be located consistently on a map. A pixel’s ground sampling describes the spacing represented in the product. The imaging service consequently includes spacecraft observations and processing that turns those observations into geographically usable data.
Pelican combines a panchromatic imaging channel with six multispectral bands and an eight-kilometer nadir swath. The spacecraft can turn to observe selected locations, supported by three-axis attitude control. Planet’s documentation also identifies electric propulsion for orbital operations, linking the spacecraft’s positioning functions to its observation work.
The Nova agreement supplies transportation for Planet’s broader constellation maintenance and expansion plans. Its specified launch rights address the delivery stage of that activity, before satellites begin the imaging, maneuvering, and data-production operations that support the company’s services.
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