Google launches Project Suncatcher prototype satellite to test TPUs in orbit

Google AI announced that its Project Suncatcher prototype satellite, built with Planet, has launched into orbit on SpaceX's Transporter-18 rideshare mission.

The initial mission will gather data on how Google TPUs handle the physical stress and extremes of spaceflight.

The post says low Earth orbit systems could generate up to 8x more solar power than on Earth, and that future work may link multiple satellite constellations for scaled machine learning.