I can’t help but admire the founding idea behind Planet Labs (PL).
A group of engineers believed they could monitor the entire Earth from space every day, and turn that data into something useful here on the ground — not just for governments and militaries, but for farmers in Rwanda, land managers in New Mexico, and researchers tracking methane emissions from orbit.
PL hasn’t changed that mission. They keep rowing the boat forward. But the stock has. Planet hit an all-time high of $51.76 on May 28, 2026, according to Yahoo Finance.
By the close of the first week of October, it was trading around $17.50. That’s a 66% collapse in just four months and a few days. Jim Cramer doesn’t think it goes much lower from here.
I think you should buy it. I think it's done going down.
In Oct. 2 Lightning Round, Cramer also mentioned meeting CEO Will Marshall through Salesforce’s Marc Benioff.
That also caught my attention because it hints at PL becoming the kind of company that increasingly moves in serious technology and climate circles.
Also Read: Planet Labs PBC (PL) Latest News
What just changed for Planet Labs
On Oct. 1, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the Transporter-18 rideshare mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, carrying 20 Planet Labs-built satellites into orbit.
PL shares jumped 8% the following day, according to Yahoo Finance. And that’s where Cramer’s conviction came from. He pointed to the stock’s strong performance, noting that “it had a good day today.”
Planet Labs noted the 20 satellites included 18 SuperDove Earth-observation satellites that refresh Planet’s core imaging fleet, one Tanager-2 hyperspectral satellite designed to track greenhouse gas emissions including methane and CO2, and one satellite that deserves more attention than the other 19 combined.
That twentieth satellite is Project Suncatcher, an experimental space-based AI computing node developed alongside Alphabet.
Outfitted with Google’s custom TPUs, the platform aims to determine whether orbital solar power can support direct AI inference processing in space. Should the experiment succeed, it could mark Planet’s most consequential strategic shift since its public market debut.
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If you can run AI inference in orbit using the same solar energy that powers the satellite, you eliminate the need to beam raw data down to Earth for processing and create an entirely new class of space-based computing infrastructure.
Planet Labs, which already operates close to 200 satellites and captures terabytes of visual data daily, would have a natural competitive advantage in building and operating such systems.
Analysts polled by S&P Global Market Intelligence don’t anticipate Planet Labs reaching profitability before 2029. Of course, we don’t expect Suncatcher to change that timeline immediately.
But it gives the company its most credible path to a new revenue stream that doesn’t depend entirely on subscription imaging contracts.
Even Planet Labs’ core business is already growing fast
Before Project Suncatcher becomes the story, we should also understand the existing business, which is performing better than the stock suggests.
Planet Labs reported record Q2 revenue of $116.1 million, up 58% year over year (YoY), according to Planet Labs Q2 Fiscal 2027 statement.
Related: Jim Cramer spills the beans to AI stock investors
CEO Will Marshall called it the “fourth consecutive quarter of meeting or exceeding the Rule of 40,” a benchmark that combines revenue growth and profit margin and serves as a strong indicator of business health for a subscription software company.
Backlog reached $814.9 million as of Q2, with approximately 50% applying to the next 12 months. Remaining performance obligations stood at $753.1 million.
Contract wins driving Planet Labs’ backlog show who needs daily satellite imagery
- The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency awarded Planet an $8 million contract for its Global Monitoring Service in August, according to Planet Labs.
- German government awarded Planet a dedicated satellite services tender worth up to €25 million over five years.
- A European defense and intelligence customer signed a seven-figure agreement for high-resolution global mapping.
- Rwanda’s Space Agency signed a national satellite data program, Planet’s first of its kind in Africa, for agricultural management, urban planning, and disaster response, according to the company statement.
That Africa contract tells us the company has become an infrastructure provider, not just a vendor. Rwanda’s government is building national policy around Planet’s imagery.
Planet also renewed a contract with a hyperscaler AI developer for global monitoring of data center and semiconductor manufacturing facility construction, according to Planet Labs. The AI buildout is literally visible from space, and Planet is the company selling that view.
Why the sell-off and what it means for buyers now
PL is down 11.26% year to date but up 17.85% over the past year, according to Yahoo Finance. The three-year return is 580.93%. The stock rose on a speculative wave in early 2026, peaked at $51.76 in May, and has been correcting since.
The “done going down” thesis is supported by a specific combination of factors all arriving at the same time: the major satellite launch completed successfully, a Google partnership beginning to generate real orbital data, record quarterly revenue, and an $814 million backlog providing forward visibility.
Planet was built to watch the Earth. Right now, investors finally have enough to watch in return.
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