Google’s Project Suncatcher achieved a key milestone with the October 1, 2026 launch of a refrigerator-sized satellite carrying four Trillium TPUs aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9, marking the first major tech company test of orbital AI compute hardware. The prototype, developed with Planet Labs, is operating as expected in low Earth orbit and will evaluate radiation tolerance, thermal management without airflow, and basic inference over the next year. Starcloud previously demonstrated Nvidia H100 operation and in-orbit model training in 2025, while SpaceX and Blue Origin pursue larger constellations targeting 2027–2028 deployments. Persistent hurdles include launch costs, radiation hardening, heat dissipation, and satellite coordination, keeping full-scale orbital data centers speculative despite accelerating hardware tests.