Google thinks SpaceX’s Starship has to launch 1,600 times before space data centers get off the ground
Google launched a TPU into orbit on SpaceX to test Project Suncatcher's space data-center concept.
Google’s Project Suncatcher prototype, built by Planet Labs, launched Thursday on a SpaceX rocket from California to test whether a Tensor Processing Unit can operate in orbit with about a kilowatt of power and adequate cooling. The satellite will run the chip in 15-minute bursts; a two-satellite, laser-linked demo is planned for next year, and Google envisions 81 satellites processing in formation. A peer-reviewed paper in Joule estimates that reaching about $200 per kilogram by 2035 would require Starship to loft roughly 370,000 tons, about 1,800 launches over ten years. Retested radiation results showed logic errors around one in a million, which Google says is acceptable for inference but not mega-scale training.