#73: A Deep-Dive on Planetary Variables - Thijs van Leeuwen, Planet

TerraWatch Space Podcast

Today, I am speaking with Thijs van Leeuwen, Director of Product at Planet. Most of you should be aware of Planet, the company that operates the largest fleet of earth imaging satellites. A couple of years ago, Planet acquired VanderSat, a Dutch startup offering data products like soil moisture derived from various sources of satellite data.

Today, VanderSat's capabilities are integrated into Planet and the fruit of that collaboration is what Planet calls Planetary Variables (PVs), a set of products that are directly usable by end-users without the need to process satellite imagery. As an advocate of making EO mainstream, I have been quite excited about PVs ever since the announcement. So, I decided to have a chat with Thijs, who was the CEO of VanderSat before the acquisition, on the podcast.

In this episode, we discuss VanderSat's journey, what are Planetary Variables, what data sources they use, the black-box problem, Planet's vision for Planetary Variables and more.

• Planet acquires VanderSat
• Planetary Variables

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01:17: Thijs' Intro and Overview of Planet

06:53: VanderSat: Founding journey

13:07: Acquisition by Planet

15:23: What are Planetary Variables (PVs)?

18:57: Examples of PVs and what data they use

22:44: Are PVs data-agnostic or do they use only Planet data?

23:59: How do PVs fit into Planet's vision and existing set of customers?

29:11: How do you come up with a PV?

30:48: The black-box problem: What is the methodology to derive a PV?

35:26: The future of PVs after the acquisition of Sinergise

38:34: The state of EO and why EO is not mainstream yet

43:07: Wrap-up questions