Level 1 — Absolute Beginner
Google makes special computer chips. The chips are called TPUs. TPUs help run artificial intelligence, or AI.
Google wants to try something new. Google will send TPUs into space on a rocket.
The rocket will launch on October 1. It belongs to a company called SpaceX.
The small satellite will carry four TPUs. Google wants to learn if computers can work well in space.
- chip
- a small electronic part inside a computer
- TPU
- a special Google chip made for artificial intelligence
- artificial intelligence
- computer systems that can learn and make decisions
- satellite
- an object that flies around Earth in space
- rocket
- a vehicle that launches things into space
- launch
- to send something, such as a rocket, into the sky or space
- orbit
- the path an object follows around a planet
- prototype
- an early test version of something new
Level 2 — Elementary
Google is preparing to test its artificial intelligence chips, called Tensor Processing Units or TPUs, in space for the first time. The project is called Project Suncatcher.
A prototype satellite carrying four of Google's TPUs will launch on October 1 aboard a SpaceX rocket, as part of a mission called Transporter-18.
Google is working with a company called Planet Labs on this project. The goal is to find out whether low Earth orbit could be a good place for the powerful computers that AI needs.
Data centers on Earth are running out of space and power to handle all the computing that AI requires. Google hopes that satellites in space, powered by sunlight, could one day help solve this problem.
- Tensor Processing Unit
- a computer chip designed by Google specifically for AI tasks
- prototype
- a first working model built to test an idea
- low Earth orbit
- the region of space close to Earth where many satellites travel
- data center
- a large facility full of computers that store and process information
- computing power
- the ability of a computer system to process information quickly
- mission
- a planned task or project, often involving space travel
- powered by
- getting energy from a particular source
- solar
- relating to energy that comes from the sun
Level 3 — Intermediate
Google is set to launch its first satellite carrying artificial intelligence hardware into orbit on October 1, a prototype mission called Project Suncatcher that will test whether low Earth orbit can support the kind of machine learning computation currently straining terrestrial data centers.
Developed in partnership with the satellite company Planet Labs, the prototype will fly aboard SpaceX's Transporter-18 rideshare mission, carrying four of Google's Trillium generation Tensor Processing Units inside a refrigerator sized payload.
The satellite will operate in a sun synchronous, dawn to dusk orbit, drawing about one kilowatt of solar power, with an expected service life of roughly one year before it either continues operating or reenters the atmosphere within six years.
Google's longer term vision, if this initial test succeeds, involves clusters of as many as 81 satellites flying in tight formation within a one kilometer radius at roughly 650 kilometers altitude, linked by high bandwidth laser communication that a second test phase planned for 2027 will begin to evaluate.
- prototype mission
- an early test flight meant to prove a new concept
- terrestrial
- relating to or existing on Earth, as opposed to space
- rideshare mission
- a spaceflight in which multiple payloads from different customers launch together
- payload
- the cargo, such as satellites or instruments, carried by a rocket
- sun synchronous orbit
- an orbit that keeps a satellite passing over the same local solar time each day
- kilowatt
- a unit of power equal to one thousand watts
- reenter
- to come back down through Earth's atmosphere from orbit
- laser communication
- sending data between devices using beams of light
Level 4 — Advanced
Google's dispatch of a refrigerator sized prototype, laden with four Trillium generation Tensor Processing Units, aboard SpaceX's Transporter-18 rideshare on October 1 marks the company's first attempt to determine empirically whether the punishing economics of terrestrial data center expansion might eventually be eased by relocating compute itself into orbit.
The mission, developed with satellite operator Planet Labs, is deliberately modest in ambition: rather than proving commercial viability outright, Project Suncatcher is designed to gather data on how the hardware withstands the mechanical stress of launch, the radiation environment of low Earth orbit, and the thermal extremes of a sun synchronous, dawn to dusk trajectory, over an expected operational lifetime of roughly a year.
That restraint reflects the scale of the engineering challenge implicit in Google's stated long term architecture, which envisions clusters of 81 satellites maintaining formation within a one kilometer radius at approximately 650 kilometers altitude, a configuration that would demand high bandwidth laser interlinks precise enough to function as a distributed, orbital analogue of a terrestrial data center's internal network, a capability the company does not intend to test until a follow on mission in 2027.
Should the underlying premise prove sound, that continuous, largely unobstructed solar power in orbit could offset the costs and delays of building new power hungry data centers on Earth, the implications would extend well beyond Google, reshaping how the broader industry weighs the economics of computing infrastructure against the geopolitics of energy supply and land use that increasingly constrain data center construction near population centers.
- empirically
- based on observation or experiment rather than theory alone
- punishing economics
- financial conditions that are extremely difficult or costly to sustain
- modest in ambition
- deliberately limited in scope rather than attempting something large
- thermal extremes
- very high and very low temperatures experienced by an object
- distributed
- spread out across multiple locations rather than centralized in one place
- analogue
- something that is comparable to or functions like something else
- premise
- an underlying assumption on which an argument or plan is based
- constrain
- to limit or restrict what is possible
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