Google will send a satellite carrying four of its Trillium-generation TPU chips into orbit on October 1, riding aboard a SpaceX Transporter-18 rideshare mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base. The refrigerator-sized craft, built with Earth-imaging company Planet and nicknamed MVP (Minimum Viable Product), carries roughly a kilowatt of solar panels to power the chips.
The mission is part of Project Suncatcher, first unveiled in November 2025, which explores whether constellations of solar-powered satellites carrying TPUs could one day support large-scale AI computing in orbit. A satellite in a near-constantly sunlit orbit can harvest up to eight times more solar power than an equivalent array on the ground, and power has become the binding constraint on data center expansion for every major AI company.
Google says the year-long test is designed to find out whether the chips can survive the vibration of launch, the radiation of low Earth orbit, and the extreme thermal swings of operating in a vacuum, rather than to prove out a finished product.