After three weeks of commissioning, the prototype equipped with four TPUs communicates with the ground. Constraint of energy forces, only one chip can turn, about twenty minutes in a row.
Launched in early October on a Falcon 9 with more than a hundred other spacecraft, Google's prototype of Project Suncatcher is operational. After about three weeks of checking its subsystems, the engineers sent it their first request: to ask Gemma 4, preloaded on board, for a haiku on life in space. The satellite also reported on orbital conditions and is operating normally, according to Google.
The machine has four TPUs on board but produces only about 1 kW: it can therefore only power one of them, for about twenty minutes, which complicates exchanges with the ground. The test campaign must measure the real effect of thermal stresses and radiation, in particular bit inversions capable of corrupting data without triggering an alert. Accelerator tests suggested that inference would be insensitive to this, unlike training.
If the chips hold, two more powerful satellites will follow in 2027 to demonstrate optical links between spacecraft, the key to the project: to make satellites flying in tight formation work together.
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