High-resolution color satellite photos (PlanetScope, 3-band)
What it measures. High-resolution color photographs of the land surface in red, green, and blue, sharp enough to pick out features just a few meters across.
How it's made. Captured by Planet Labs' fleet of small 'Dove' satellites and acquired by NASA's commercial data program, delivered as standard map-ready image files.
How & where you'd use it. Suited to detailed monitoring of land, crops, disasters, and development; access is restricted to approved US government-funded researchers.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2014-06-01 → ongoing
- Measured byPlanetScope (PS2.SD, PSB.SD, PS2, PS1, PS0)
- Processing levelLevel 1B
- Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
- FormatsGeoTiff
- StatusCOMPLETE
What you can do with it
- Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
- Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
- Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description
The Planet Scope 3 band collection contains satellite imagery obtained from Planet Labs, Inc by the Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program. This satellite imagery is in the visible waveband range with data in the red, green, and blue wavelengths. These data are collected by Planets Dove, Super Dove, and Blue Super Dove instruments collected from across the global land surface from June 2014 to present. Data have a spatial resolution of 3.7 meters at nadir and provided in GeoTIFF format. Data access are restricted to US Government funded investigators approved by the CSDA Program.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="PSScene3Band",
version="1",
bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9), # your area (W,S,E,N)
temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"), # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results) # stream straight from CSDA Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package. Official links
- Planet Labs, Inc Product Specification VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- CSDA Program data evaluation results VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- Form to request access to commercial data VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- Data Download GET DATA