- Google’s Venture Suncatcher check satellite tv for pc launched on October 1 with 4 AI chips on board.
- Rivals Starcloud and Cowboy House are valued at $4.3 billion mixed.
- Google’s analysis says orbital computing wants launch prices close to $200 per kilogram to compete.
Google has put roughly one server’s price of computing energy into orbit. The corporate launched a prototype satellite tv for pc for Project Suncatcher carrying 4 of its AI chips, often known as Tensor Processing Models, aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-18 rideshare mission.
Listed here are 5 issues to know in regards to the check, and in regards to the startups that obtained there first.
The primary satellite tv for pc is a one-server check
Google constructed the satellite tv for pc with Planet, a satellite tv for pc operator, and launched it from Vandenberg House Pressure Base in California. Travis Beals, a senior director at Google, wrote in a weblog put up that the crew “has confirmed contact with the satellite tv for pc and it’s working as anticipated.”
The New York Times reported that the 4 chips carry in regards to the computing energy of 1 information centre server.
Google frames the mission as one fundamental query: can its AI {hardware} survive and work in house? It’ll gather in-orbit information within the weeks after launch on how the chips deal with launch stress, radiation, and excessive temperatures, and has printed a peer-reviewed paper on the analysis in Joule.
Radiation appears manageable, however reminiscence is the weak spot
On the bottom, Google says its Trillium chips tolerated extra radiation in a proton beam on the College of California, Davis, than a five-year mission would ship.
Brendan Burke, a analysis director at analyst agency Futurum, places the margin at about 20 occasions for the primary processing die, based mostly on Google’s paper. He flags reminiscence because the weak spot: the high-bandwidth reminiscence confirmed irregularities at a decrease dose, although it was nonetheless practically 3 times the mission requirement.
These are Google’s personal outcomes, Burke notes, and nonetheless want in-orbit proof.
Warmth is the more durable downside, and Google is preserving expectations low
A vacuum has no air or water to hold warmth away, so chips can solely shed it by way of radiators, and Google is testing warmth pipes and radiators for the job.
In keeping with Futurum’s abstract of New York Occasions reporting, the satellite tv for pc attracts about one kilowatt from its photo voltaic panels, runs quick queries in roughly 15-minute home windows earlier than shutting down to chill, and is designed to function for a yr.
James Manyika, Google’s senior vice chairman for analysis, advised the New York Occasions the corporate doesn’t count on something “usefully operational” within the subsequent few years, and in contrast the trouble to its early driverless automobile work.
The following check is available in 2027, when Google plans to place two satellites in orbit to attempt high-bandwidth laser hyperlinks between them.
Startups are already in orbit, and traders are paying up
A startup, Starcloud, flew an NVIDIA H100, a chip constructed for information centres, in November 2025. Previously Lumen Orbit and based mostly in Redmond, Washington, it says it has since skilled an AI mannequin and run a Google language mannequin in orbit. Adi Oltean, Philip Johnston, and Ezra Feilden based it in 2024.
Tech Funding Information reported its $170 million Sequence A in March 2026 at a $1.1 billion valuation, led by Benchmark and EQT Ventures, with Benchmark basic associate Chetan Puttagunta becoming a member of the board. On August 21, Starcloud added a $250 million extension at a $2.3 billion valuation, led by Manhattan West, with NVIDIA and Cisco Investments becoming a member of as new traders. Johnston mentioned the capital will let Starcloud launch extra of NVIDIA’s most superior GPUs into house.
The corporate has raised $450 million since its founding and has filed with the US Federal Communications Fee for a constellation of as much as 88,000 satellites.
Cowboy Space, previously Aetherflux, is taking a distinct route. Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt based it in 2024, and it raised a $275 million Series B at a $2 billion valuation in Could 2026, led by Index Ventures. Its first satellite tv for pc, due later in 2026, will check beaming solar energy to Earth slightly than computing, and Quartz, citing Bloomberg, experiences the primary rocket launch is focused earlier than the top of 2028.
Europe is a small participant right here. In a November 2025 report, the European House Coverage Institute counted practically €70 million of personal capital invested in house information centre ventures worldwide since 2020, throughout 13 offers, and located the US invests virtually 10 occasions extra non-public capital within the area than Europe does.
Starcloud’s August extension alone was bigger than that complete tally. Finnish satellite tv for pc maker ReOrbit, led by founder and CEO Sethu Saveda Suvanam, received a €4.6 million Business Finland grant in June 2026 to construct OrbitCloud, a community meant to run AI inference in house. Johnston has argued that Europe lacks threat capital and ambition slightly than expertise.
Launch prices determine who wins
The true gate is the value of getting {hardware} to orbit. Google’s paper says orbital computing reaches price parity with information centres on Earth provided that launch falls to about $200 per kilogram, a degree its evaluation says launch could reach by the mid-2030s.
In its September report, Futurum put the value on a reusable Falcon 9 at roughly $3,600 per kilogram. It additionally estimated orbital infrastructure prices about $72.1 billion per gigawatt, excluding compute, in opposition to $16.2 billion for off-grid terrestrial websites.
Starcloud’s numbers are extra optimistic and use a distinct yardstick, in order that they aren’t straight comparable. Johnston has mentioned its Starcloud-3 spacecraft turns into cost-competitive if industrial Starship launches attain about $500 per kilogram, which he expects in 2028 or 2029.
Each Google and Starcloud rely upon SpaceX for launch, and Futurum notes SpaceX has filed for a constellation of as much as 1 million satellites and, after buying xAI, is a potential competitor in addition to the launch supplier.
So the cash is working forward of the proof. Traders have put $450 million into Starcloud and $275 million into Cowboy’s newest spherical, whereas Google’s personal analysis chief doesn’t count on something helpful to run in orbit inside just a few years.
Watch whether or not Google’s chips maintain working by way of the mission, and whether or not industrial Starship pricing will get wherever close to $500 per kilogram.