Google plans to fly a Project Suncatcher prototype with Planet aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-18 mission to test hardware in space. The flight is one step in a research effort exploring whether solar-powered satellites could eventually support machine-learning computing; it is not an operating orbital data center.
Google’s planned Project Suncatcher flight
Project Suncatcher is Google’s research into space-based computing. Its planned Transporter-18 mission is a prototype test, while the broader concept explores a system of solar-powered satellites connected by optical links.
What Google Research’s lab tests found
In a research post published November 4, 2025, Google Research reported radiation testing of Trillium, its v6e Cloud TPU. The chip was exposed to a 67 MeV proton beam. High-bandwidth memory (HBM) irregularities began after a cumulative dose of 2 krad(Si). On a single chip, Google Research observed no hard failure attributable to total ionizing dose (TID) through 15 krad(Si); the expected dose for a shielded five-year mission was 750 rad(Si).
These measurements came from laboratory testing of Trillium. They describe neither results from the planned Transporter-18 flight nor another TPU model.
Optical links and the wider engineering challenge
The broader Suncatcher design considers satellites in dawn–dusk, sun-synchronous low Earth orbit, linked by free-space optical communications. Google Research reported that a bench-scale demonstrator using one transceiver pair reached 800 Gbps in each direction, or 1.6 Tbps total. That was a laboratory demonstration, not an orbital link test.
Google Research also identifies thermal management, communication with the ground and reliability in orbit as engineering challenges for the wider system. The prototype mission sits within that research effort; it does not amount to deployment of a working satellite computing network.
The next planned step
Google Research said in its November 4, 2025 post that a follow-up learning mission with Planet was planned to launch two prototype satellites by early 2027.
