Google's First Project Suncatcher Satellite Carrying Four AI Chips Launches on SpaceX Transporter-18

1 October 2026National

Google launched the first prototype satellite of Project Suncatcher, its plan for solar-powered data centres in orbit, on SpaceX's Transporter-18 rideshare from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California on 1 October. The Falcon 9 carried 130 payloads; Google's spacecraft, built by Earth-imaging firm Planet Labs, holds four Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) and will spend about a year testing how space radiation and heat dissipation affect AI chips. Two more Planet-built satellites in 2027 will test laser links between spacecraft. It lands amid India's own orbital-computing push - TakeMe2Space's networked orbital data centre slated for 2028 and last week's TAPAS-1 thermal nanosatellite.

Static GK

Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) are Google's custom-designed AI accelerator chips, first announced in 2016 | SpaceX's Transporter series are dedicated smallsat rideshare missions flown on the Falcon 9 | Vandenberg Space Force Base in California is the main US launch site for polar and sun-synchronous orbits

ShareWhatsApp Telegram

More International Current Affairs

Skyroot Aerospace Signs Two-Launch Contract with US Firm Reflect Orbital for On-Demand Sunlight Satellites

Skyroot Aerospace, the Hyderabad-based launch company founded in 2018, signed a contract with the US startup Reflect Orbital for two dedicated satellite launches on its Vikram rockets. Reflect Orbital plans satellites carrying large mirrors that redirect sunlight to chosen locations after sunset, offering controllable illumination over about 5 km with an on-off option for search-and-rescue, solar farms, remote industrial zones and defence. The first mission will fly on Vikram-1 and the second on the more powerful Vikram-1U, which adds first-stage boosters. Skyroot launched Vikram-S in November 2022 as India's first private rocket and flew Vikram-1 to orbit in July 2026.

GK ByteSkyroot Aerospace was founded in 2018 by former ISRO engineers Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka and is headquartered at Hyderabad | Vikram-S, launched on 18 November 2022 from Sriharikota under Mission Prarambh, was India's first privately developed rocket | IN-SPACe, set up in 2020 and headquartered at Ahmedabad, is the single-window regulator and promoter for India's private space sector

📅 19 Oct 2026InternationalRead complete →

NASA Picks PUFFINS, a USD 20 Million Ultraviolet SmallSat Led by Bengaluru-Born Ramya Anche

NASA has selected PUFFINS - Polarimetry in the Ultraviolet to Find Features in INterStellar dust - a USD 20 million small-satellite mission under its Astrophysics Pioneers programme, with Bengaluru-born Ramya Anche of the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory as Principal Investigator. A roughly 10-inch telescope will use ultraviolet spectropolarimetry on about 70 stars to establish what the smallest interstellar dust grains - below about 50 nanometres, invisible to optical and infrared telescopes - are made of and how they clump into planets. Launch is targeted for around 2030, as a precursor to NASA's Habitable Worlds Observatory.

GK ByteNASA's Astrophysics Pioneers programme funds small, low-cost astrophysics missions such as CubeSats, SmallSats and balloon payloads | Polarimetry measures the polarisation of light; interstellar dust grains align with magnetic fields and polarise the starlight passing through them | The Habitable Worlds Observatory is NASA's planned large ultraviolet-optical-infrared space telescope intended to search for signs of life on Earth-like exoplanets

📅 19 Oct 2026InternationalRead complete →

ISRO Completes Crew Module-Service Module Separation Tests for Gaganyaan at VSSC

ISRO has completed a series of Crew Module-Service Module (CM-SM) separation tests at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, on a rig that simulated the full CM-SM assembly with extensive instrumentation. The sequence validated pyrotechnic devices and jettisoning systems that sever several umbilical connections, and checked shock survivability of avionics, the Inertial Navigation Systems, the Aft and Conical Heat Shield, the CM Deployable Umbilical Shield and the Uprighting System. It clears a key gate before the first uncrewed mission Gaganyaan-1 (G1), which will carry the half-humanoid robot Vyommitra, and follows the crew-module qualification and air-drop tests completed earlier in 2026.

GK ByteGaganyaan uses the Human-Rated LVM3 (HLVM3) launch vehicle flying from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota | The Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre at Thiruvananthapuram is ISRO's lead centre for launch vehicle development | ISRO was founded on 15 August 1969 and is headquartered in Bengaluru

📅 16 Oct 2026InternationalRead complete →

ISRO and CNES Firm Up the Indo-French TRISHNA Thermal Imaging Satellite for a 2027 Launch

ISRO and France's CNES confirmed that TRISHNA - Thermal infraRed Imaging Satellite for High-resolution Natural resource Assessment - will fly within 12-16 months, planned for October 2027 on a PSLV from Sriharikota into a polar sun-synchronous orbit at about 761 km. CNES supplies the thermal infrared (TIR) payload and ISRO the visible-near-infrared and shortwave infrared payload, giving about 57 m resolution over land and coasts and roughly 1 km over oceans, with a mission life near five years. It will track land surface temperature, crop water stress, urban heat islands and glacier melt, extending Indo-French cooperation after Megha-Tropiques (2011) and SARAL (2013).

GK ByteCNES (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales), France's space agency, was founded in 1961 and is headquartered in Paris | Earlier Indo-French satellite missions include Megha-Tropiques (2011) and SARAL (2013) | ISRO was established on 15 August 1969 and is headquartered in Bengaluru; the PSLV launches from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota

📅 12 Oct 2026InternationalRead complete →

See all Space →All Current Affairs