Google’s October 1, 2026 launch of the Project Suncatcher prototype satellite aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 marks the most immediate catalyst for trader sentiment. The refrigerator-sized craft carries four Trillium TPUs—the equivalent of one terrestrial server—powered by solar arrays delivering roughly 1 kW, with heat-pipe cooling and radiation-hardening tests already completed on the ground. The one-year mission will run short Gemini inference workloads while validating bit-flip rates and thermal performance in orbit. Broader industry momentum includes SpaceX’s FCC filing for up to one million orbital-compute satellites targeting 2028 deployment, Starcloud’s 2025 H100 LLM training in space, and Blue Origin’s Project Sunrise constellation plans. However, scaling from single-server tests to multi-megawatt, laser-linked satellite clusters still faces unresolved hurdles in launch economics, inter-satellite bandwidth, and regulatory approval, keeping near-term full data-center resolution uncertain despite the recent hardware milestone.