*Falcon 9 lofted Alphabet's MVP satellite — 4x Google Trillium TPUs — first in-orbit test of Project Suncatcher (research moonshot Nov 2025)*
- *Goal NOT latency, it's power/heat: space gives near-constant sun in dawn-dusk orbit ∼650km, 8x solar yield vs ground (no night/clouds/atmos), no NIMBY for ground power plants — TPUs run Gemini queries, but limited to ∼15 min on / cooldown due to vacuum cooling (heat pipes + radiator, no air) — compute of 1 Google Cloud TPU v6e-4 slice, 1kW total (~hair dryer)* $SAND $CT
- *Built with Planet Labs (refrigerator-size bus to speed up), flies with India's TakeMe2Space MOI-1a on same rideshare — next step 2027: 2 satellites test 1.6 Tbps optical inter-satellite links ("coin target miles away while moving") — long-term design 81 satellites flying within 1km, laser-meshed*
- *Economics: Not viable yet — needs launch $200/kg by ∼2035 vs $1500-2900/kg now — Futurum: $1T orbital compute market by 2030 if costs collapse — Google itself paying SpaceX $920M/month for ground GPUs till June 2029*
*BREAKING 🚨 SpaceX Falcon 9 Oct 1 launches Alphabet's Project Suncatcher MVP — 4x AI TPUs in orbit 🚀 Refrigerator-size Planet sat, 1kW solar, 15-min compute bursts, tests space-based AI data center for power not latency — dawn-dusk orbit, 81-sat laser cluster vision, 2027 pair test — needs $200/kg launch cost by 2035 for viability 🌐*
- *Goal NOT latency, it's power/heat: space gives near-constant sun in dawn-dusk orbit ∼650km, 8x solar yield vs ground (no night/clouds/atmos), no NIMBY for ground power plants — TPUs run Gemini queries, but limited to ∼15 min on / cooldown due to vacuum cooling (heat pipes + radiator, no air) — compute of 1 Google Cloud TPU v6e-4 slice, 1kW total (~hair dryer)* $SAND $CT
- *Built with Planet Labs (refrigerator-size bus to speed up), flies with India's TakeMe2Space MOI-1a on same rideshare — next step 2027: 2 satellites test 1.6 Tbps optical inter-satellite links ("coin target miles away while moving") — long-term design 81 satellites flying within 1km, laser-meshed*
- *Economics: Not viable yet — needs launch $200/kg by ∼2035 vs $1500-2900/kg now — Futurum: $1T orbital compute market by 2030 if costs collapse — Google itself paying SpaceX $920M/month for ground GPUs till June 2029*
*BREAKING 🚨 SpaceX Falcon 9 Oct 1 launches Alphabet's Project Suncatcher MVP — 4x AI TPUs in orbit 🚀 Refrigerator-size Planet sat, 1kW solar, 15-min compute bursts, tests space-based AI data center for power not latency — dawn-dusk orbit, 81-sat laser cluster vision, 2027 pair test — needs $200/kg launch cost by 2035 for viability 🌐*
