SoMa Satellite Shop Swells as Planet Labs Rides Defense Contract Wave

Planet Labs is quietly turning more of its SoMa headquarters into a full-on satellite shop as government and intelligence orders stack up. The company is boosting assembly and test capacity at its Harrison Street offices even while it builds a second factory in Berlin to handle larger production runs.

According to the San Francisco Business Times, Planet has taken additional space at 645 Harrison Street and now occupies three floors of the building, making room for more in-house satellite work. The outlet reports that the interior build-out will allow Planet to shift more Pelican satellite assembly and testing onto its local benches.

Planet's recent SEC filings confirm 645 Harrison Street as the company's executive office and list the mailing and business address for its San Francisco headquarters as "645 Harrison Street, Floor 4," according to SEC records. The filings also classify the office under manufacturing, underscoring that the company uses the space for hardware work.

Defense contracts are driving demand

Planet's manufacturing push lines up with a steady flow of government awards that are swelling the company's backlog and its need for production capacity. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency recently exercised a roughly $22 million option under the Luno B program for maritime analytics, a move industry coverage says is deepening Planet's work for defense customers, according to Satellite Today.

Berlin plant to double Pelican output

At the same time, Planet is building out a manufacturing hub in Berlin to scale high-volume production of its Pelican high-resolution satellites. The company announced the European expansion and recruiting for the Berlin site in a press release, saying the location will roughly double Pelican's output to serve European and NATO customers.

What this means for San Francisco

On the local front, the SoMa build-out keeps some advanced assembly and test work in San Francisco even as higher-volume production shifts to Europe. That split, noted by the Business Times, is a familiar playbook for hardware firms that keep engineering and integration close to headquarters while placing large-scale manufacturing where it is easier to ramp up. For now, the expansion appears to preserve bench work and testing roles at Planet's 645 Harrison campus.

Regulatory context and security trade-offs

Planet's growing role for defense and intelligence agencies is already influencing how it handles its imagery. In April, the company said it would withhold imagery of Iran and certain conflict zones at the request of the U.S. government, illustrating the security trade-offs that come with deeper government ties, as reported by Al Jazeera. The managed-access approach highlights the balance Planet seeks to strike between commercial transparency and national security obligations.

"These solutions bridge the 'last mile' between raw data and actionable intelligence," Jon Powers, Planet's vice president of Global Defense and Intelligence, said in a statement, according to Satellite Today. As Planet stretches its factory footprint from SoMa to Berlin, the company says the mix of local hardware work and overseas capacity will be central to meeting a fast-growing government customer base.