We first heard about Google’s Project Suncatcher late last year, when the company announced that it would attempt to build AI data centres in space. The first of those attempts will arrive this week, with a (very) small version bound for space.
The point isn’t to suddenly stream answers to your inane AI queries from space. That, apparently, comes later. Instead, Suncatcher is checking the viability of sending the components up. The tensor processing units Google is using will be dispatched later this week. If they survive, the search company has more data to work with. If they don’t… it’s back to the drawing board.
Pitching Suncatcher
Google’s test will make use of a SpaceX launch on 1 October. Not the pending Starship orbital launch, although that’s also supposed to happen this week. Instead, the Suncatcher proof-of-concept will travel on SpaceX’s Transporter 18 mission, alongside a few other passengers. According to SpaceX, there are 130 companions alongside Google’s effort. These include “cubesats, microsats, hosted payloads, and two spacecraft with reentry vehicles and four orbital transfer vehicles carrying 41 of those payloads to be deployed at a later time.”
We’re taking AI to space with @Google. 🛰️
Project Suncatcher explores putting AI compute in orbit, powered by the sun. Soon, we’ll be sending our first satellite into space to start testing that idea. It’s a new approach to AI infrastructure.
Check out a behind-the-scenes look… pic.twitter.com/cup8uXuyrC
— Planet (@planet) September 24, 2026
Google’s four tensor processing units, plus the solar panels apparently needed to get them going, will have plenty of company. The satellite, reportedly named MVP, is supposed to operate in space for at least a year. It’ll be capable of answering simple questions while it’s up there, according to the company. Its intelligence isn’t really the point — getting it to function without burning up or freezing to death is.
Suncatcher will test the system’s reaction to radiation bombardment, among other tasks. It’s got a novel correction method planned if radiation causes issues. Google plans to turn the satellite off and on again. There’s a cooling system being tested, but it’ll reportedly only function for fifteen minutes at a time before the chips need to be shut down. As we said, this is a proof-of-concept for Suncatcher. It’s not supposed to be fully operational.
Google’s project could well work in concept with this launch, but it’ll eventually run into similar issues to those projects like Reflect Orbital are facing. That is, getting the data centres up in large enough numbers to a) matter and b) without costing vast amounts of money. Still, we’re sure it’ll be exciting enough having an AI query or two answered by a little orbiting electronic critter.
