Google thinks SpaceX’s Starship has to launch 1,800 times before space data centers get off the ground

Google’s prototype of its orbital compute satellite took off today onboard a SpaceX rocket launched from California — the first time the tech giant has sent one of its advanced chips into space.

Built by Planet Labs, the satellite will prove that a Google Tensor Processing Unit, its competitor to Nvidia’s GPUs, can function in space. That means supplying a kilowatt of continuous power, cooling the chip, and running a series of models through their paces to see if anything goes wrong.

“We’ve done testing on the ground, but you know, there’s no test that’s completely as good as the real thing,” said Travis Beals, the Google executive managing Project Suncatcher, the tech giant’s plan to develop large-scale compute clusters in orbit around the Earth.

Once commissioned, the satellite will fire up its TPU in 15-minute bursts to avoid straining the satellite’s power and thermal management systems. This satellite is based on a standard platform built by Planet Labs, but the two companies are working on a demo expected to take flight next year that will see two satellites more purpose-built for advanced compute that can run more substantial workloads. Those future versions will attempt to collaborate via a laser communications link.

Suncatcher isn’t the only space AI payload on this SpaceX rocket, which is launching more than 100 different payloads, including missions from Satlyt and Cowboy Space Company.

What sets the Google initiative apart from those startups (and indeed from SpaceX itself) is that it’s a long-term project.

The focus of this “long-term moonshot,” as Beals puts it, is on building for the space infrastructure and AI workloads that will exist in the future. The company envisions an orbital data center that is a network of 81 satellites flying in close formation, processing in parallel.