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SpaceX Bandwagon-5 Rideshare Lifts Off: Planet's Pelican-12 Carries NVIDIA Jetson for On-Orbit AI, SES Demo Payload for NASA
Launched 7:04 a.m. ET from Cape Canaveral; Pelican-12 is Planet's 25th satellite of 2026, testing satellite-to-satellite comms for SES's NASA CSP demonstration.
Why it matters
SpaceX successfully launched the Bandwagon-5 rideshare mission this morning, putting multiple satellites into orbit — headlined by Planet's Pelican-12, which carries two frontier demonstrations at once: on-orbit AI inferencing (NVIDIA Jetson) and a commercial space-data-relay demo for NASA's Communications Services Project — as NASA shifts from its own TDRS relay fleet to buying commercial relay services.
Full report
Liftoff took place at 7:04 a.m. ET from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Pelican-12 is Planet's second-generation (Gen 2) high-resolution imaging satellite and the company's 25th satellite sent to orbit in 2026.
Pelican-12 carries the NVIDIA Jetson platform for onboard edge compute to accelerate on-orbit AI inferencing, plus a prototype communications package for SES Space & Defense that tests satellite-to-satellite communications by downlinking imagery via SES's O3b mPOWER satellites — part of the demonstration for NASA's Communications Services Project (CSP).
NASA has announced it will gradually sunset its Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) fleet and acquire commercial space relay services for future low-Earth-orbit science missions; in 2022 NASA awarded $278.5 million to industry through CSP to develop and demonstrate space relay services. SES says its LEO Relay Service (LRS) has already been demonstrated on orbit on both geosynchronous and O3b mPOWER systems.
Pelican-12 is the fifth Pelican launched in 2026, designed to deliver up to 30 cm-class imagery (versus 50 cm for Gen 1). Pelican production at Planet's expanded Berlin facility is scheduled to start this year, with more launches planned for 2027.
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