Do all PlanetScope images have the same quality?

We currently make two classes of PlanetScope imagery available to our customers:
standard and target.

• Standard: This is engineering-grade imagery that meets high signal-to-noise, focus and on-nadir requirements.
• Target: This imagery meets the requirements for ‘standard’ imagery that is representative of the imagery Planet Labs is trying to acquire in that it was captured between 09:00 and 11:00 sun time and has a ground sampling distance of approximately 3 meters.

Each individual PlanetScope scene’s metadata contains an image_statistics.image_quality property that indicates the quality of that particular image.

Planet is also continuously improving the performance of the telescopes that we put into space, and there is a significant improvement in the quality of newer images. You might see reference to PlanetScope 1 and PlanetScope 2 imagery (or PS1 and PS2), and this indicates the generation of telescope that was used to capture an image. All new Planet satellites will host a PS2 sensor.