SES relay demo payload launches on Planet's Pelican-12 for NASA

SES Space & Defense, a subsidiary of SES, has launched a demonstration payload on Planet's Pelican-12 satellite as part of NASA's Communications Services Project. The satellite lifted off on 20 October 2026 at 7:04 a.m. ET on the SpaceX Bandwagon-5 rideshare mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

NASA plans to retire its Tracking and Data Relay Satellite fleet gradually and buy commercial relay services for low Earth orbit science missions; in 2022 it awarded $278.5 million to industry to develop and demonstrate such services. SES has already shown its LEO Relay Service on geosynchronous and O3b mPOWER medium Earth orbit systems.

Pelican carries an in-house software-defined radio and a folded-optic flat-slab tracking antenna. These will support a global capstone test that completes SES's demonstration. Planet says the prototype sends imagery down through O3b mPOWER satellites and could cut data delivery latency.

Why it matters: Relaying imagery through satellites in higher orbits, rather than waiting for ground-station passes, could shorten the delay before Earth observation data reaches users. Commercial relay services are being validated for NASA science missions.