Forget another terrestrial megacampus — Google’s AI silicon is hitching a ride to the vacuum. SpaceX’s uncrewed Transporter-18 Falcon 9 mission from Vandenberg is set to carry Planet Labs satellites including a solar-powered prototype packed with Google tensor processing units (TPUs), CNBC reported Thursday.
It is the first in-orbit test for Alphabet’s Project Suncatcher, the moonshot (first revealed November 2025) aimed at solar-powered AI computing that can run continuously in space. Alphabet framed it as exploring whether space could one day host scalable machine-learning infrastructure — with near-constant sunlight that can generate up to eight times more solar power than on Earth, and eventual linked satellite constellations for bigger orbital workloads.
Space.com put liftoff in a window opening about 2:18 p.m. ET / 11:18 a.m. PT, with about 130 payloads aboard. The pathfinder’s job: see how TPUs handle radiation and heat dissipation in low Earth orbit. Alphabet already ran TPU AI workloads in a UC Davis facility — orbit is the hard mode.
Alphabet’s SpaceX stake is valued at more than $82 billion after SpaceX’s June IPO, CNBC noted. Elon Musk’s shop is pitching its own orbital supercompute for 2027; Thursday is also a busy SpaceX calendar with NASA’s Crew-13 and an NRO Falcon Heavy on the board.
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