Planet Labs Buys BlackBridge Satellite Unit to Expand Fleet

Jeff Kearns and Gerrit De Vynck

July 15, 2015, 7:00 AM EDT Updated on July 15, 2015, 10:45 AM EDT

Satellite maker Planet Labs Inc. agreed to buy BlackBridge Corp.’s geospatial businesses to expand its orbiting fleet and photographic archive, at a time of high demand for quality images from space.

Planet Labs will buy five RapidEye satellites from Lethbridge, Alberta-based BlackBridge as well as an archive of 6 billion square kilometers of imagery captured over the past six years, the San Francisco-based company said in a statement Wednesday. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.