Google sends TPUs into orbit next week

Google’s Project Suncatcher is sending a prototype satellite into orbit next week to test Tensor Processing Units against launch stress, radiation, and thermal extremes, the company says. Google says future satellites could carry dozens of TPUs, with near-constant sunlight offering up to 8× Earth’s solar power, but The Verge’s launch account reports the test chips may run only about 15 minutes before cooling. Builders watching orbital compute should file this beside AstroForge’s shadow-mode autonomy test: hardware survival and cooling evidence come before capacity claims.