After the identification of a Chinese balloon traveling above the U.S. in February 2023, Synthetaic’s AI tool, RAIC (Rapid Automatic Image Categorization), leveraged Planet imagery to backtrack its initial path across North America and to its place of origin.

RAIC is designed to make it possible to search large satellite image collections for objects of interest using a single example image. The team compiled twelve sightings of the balloon in satellite imagery and also used wind data to estimate how it moved between those points. A model of this type used to take months, but now these algorithms can be deployed within hours -- and even minutes! -- thanks to companies like Synthetaic.

Watch the video to learn how Planet data and AI can discover elusive objects.

What would you RAIC next?