Google’s Suncatcher prototype space data centre is online and talking to the ground. It launched earlier this month on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, alongside more than 100 other spacecraft, TechCrunch reports.
The satellite carries four Google Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). It generates up to 1 kW of electricity. It is meant to pave the way for future networks of close-flying satellites that run large inference workloads in orbit.
One Chip at a Time
Power is a tight limit. The satellite’s TPU demand means it can switch on only one chip, for about 20 minutes at a time. That makes space-to-ground communication harder.
The satellite spent about three weeks in commissioning, which tested its subsystems. This week, engineers sent its first prompt. They asked the pre-loaded Google DeepMind Gemma 4 model to write a haiku about being in space. The model replied with a short poem about Earth below, data streaming and starlight.
Google also asked the spacecraft to report on the orbital conditions around it. A spokesperson told TechCrunch the satellite is operating nominally.
Testing Chips Against Radiation
The test campaign will now study how the chips cope with thermal stress and space radiation. Google has tested its TPUs in particle accelerators on Earth. Now it can see how radiation affects the hardware in space.
Radiation can cause bit flips, where a stored value in computer memory changes. These flips can corrupt data without setting off typical monitoring tools. Ground tests suggested the impact would be small for inference and a bigger problem for training. The Google team can now check this in orbit rather than in simulation.
If the TPUs prove capable, Google will launch two more satellites with advanced chips in 2027. They will generate more power and demonstrate inter-satellite optical links.
A Different Plan From Rivals
Suncatcher is largely alone in planning high-speed links between satellites to support coherent distributed workloads. SpaceX’s data centres are also expected to use laser links. But they are expected to orbit too far apart to share processing well. Starcloud and Cowboy Space plan to run inference on individual satellites.
The SpaceX Connection
Google’s and SpaceX’s plans are closely linked. Alphabet, Google’s parent, holds a significant investment stake in SpaceX. Both companies need Starship, the heavy-lift rocket still in development, to be fully and rapidly reusable. That is how they would launch their orbital data centres.
In a peer-reviewed analysis published earlier this month, Suncatcher researchers estimated that SpaceX would need to fly Starship 1,800 times. That would match the learning-driven cost cuts it achieved with its earlier vehicles.
Suncatcher is a classic Google moonshot. The company is designing infrastructure to be economical in the 2030s. Reaching that point may depend on how the rest of Google handles the pressures and chances AI brings in the near term. Alphabet’s stock fell sharply this week after it reported that its push to bring AI into search is hurting ad revenue growth.
