AI

Google Just Put AI Chips in Space — Here's What Project Suncatcher Is Testing

📅 Oct 1, 2026

✍️ Aamir Raza

Google Is Putting AI in Orbit

Project Suncatcher's first satellite launches today, carrying AI chips hundreds of miles above Earth.

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Liftoff on a SpaceX Falcon 9

The MVP satellite rides SpaceX's Transporter-18 rideshare mission from Vandenberg, California.

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4 TPUs on Board

The fridge-size satellite carries four of Google's Tensor Processing Units — the same chips powering its AI data centers.

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Up to 8x More Sunlight

In a dawn-dusk orbit, the panels see nearly constant sun. Google says that's up to 8x more solar power than on the ground.

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Cooling Is the Hard Part

Space has no air to carry heat away. Heat pipes and radiators do the job — so the chips run in 15-minute bursts, then rest.

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