Planet Labs PBC (NYSE: PL) announced its participation as a founding member in the Atmospheric Impact of Reentered Spacecraft (AIRS) initiative, led by Astroscale Holdings Inc. The collaboration aims to study the effects of spacecraft reentry on Earth's atmosphere.

The initiative brings together industry and academic partners to research chemical compounds released during satellite reentry fragmentation and vaporization. Planet and Astroscale will share non-proprietary manufacturing data and material compositions with researchers at the University of Southampton to develop atmospheric models.

The research addresses an area that has received limited scientific attention as the number of satellites in low Earth orbit increases. Current orbital debris studies have not extensively examined the atmospheric impact of spacecraft reentry processes.

"Our mission to make global change visible starts with a deep responsibility for the space environment in which we operate," said James Mason, Chief Space Officer at Planet. "By providing data to the AIRS initiative, we are helping the scientific community move past simulations and toward a factual, data-driven understanding of our industry's atmospheric footprint."

Mike Lindsay, Chief Technology Officer at Astroscale, stated that spacecraft reentry "has long been treated as an optimal mission endpoint, but it is increasingly clear that we need a deeper scientific understanding of what happens during this phase."

Planet operates what it describes as the world's largest Earth observation satellite fleet. The company provides daily satellite imagery and geospatial solutions to customers in agriculture, forestry, intelligence, education, finance, and government sectors.