Recent events
Recent events tied to this brand in public sources.
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2026
SpaceX Transporter-18 mission to carry Google TPUs into orbit for first in-orbit test of Project Suncatcher
SpaceX's Transporter-18 mission, scheduled for Oct 1, 2026 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, will carry Planet Labs satellites into low Earth orbit aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, including a solar-powered prototype equipped with Google's tensor processing units (TPUs). The flight marks the first in-orbit test for Alphabet's Project Suncatcher, a moonshot initiative to develop reliable, solar-powered AI computing infrastructure in space.
2026
Google launches TPU prototype satellite into orbit aboard SpaceX rocket
On October 1, 2026, Google launched a prototype orbital compute satellite carrying its Tensor Processing Unit aboard a SpaceX rocket from California, the first time Google has sent one of its advanced chips into space. The satellite was built by Planet Labs and will test whether the TPU can function in space, including supplying a kilowatt of continuous power, cooling the chip, and running models, as a step toward space data centers.