Google Project Suncatcher 原型卫星完成首次在轨 TPU 推理
First response from the Project Suncatcher prototype satellite
Google 的 Project Suncatcher 原型卫星在轨运行 Gemma 4 开放模型，完成首次由数据中心级 TPU 在太空生成的 AI 回复。卫星飞经挪威斯瓦尔巴群岛上空时，地面站上行提示词并成功下行返回一首关于身处太空的俳句。此前团队已完成主机与 TPU 托盘上电和早期机器学习测试，接下来将评估 TPU 在轨热应力与辐射暴露下的表现，为 2027 年双星互联里程碑做准备。
On October 1, we launched our prototype satellite for Project Suncatcher. The launch marked the first step in our long-term research moonshot to explore powering AI compute in space. Since then, we've spent the last few weeks completing our commissioning checklist, which included powering up the host and TPU trays and successfully running early machine learning tests. This week, we reached our "Hello World" milestone: the first-ever AI response from a data center class TPU in orbit.
During a ground-station pass, we uplinked our first prompt to our onboard Gemma 4 open model, asking it to generate a haiku about being in space. As the satellite passed by Svalbard, Norway, the downlinked poem confirmed success:
Blue marble below
Data streams in silent grace
Starlight feeds my core. ✨
Following this initial output, we tested space-themed limericks and telemetry prompts reporting the technical status of the payload systems. Next, we will continue with a series of tests to evaluate how TPUs perform under thermal stress and radiation exposure in orbit. Verifying our TPUs can reliably execute workloads in space paves the way for our next milestone of twin interconnected satellites in 2027.
Our chips have officially earned their space wings — an important achievement on the long road ahead for this cosmic moonshot.
来源：Google AI Blog · blog.google