Space · Friday, 2 October 2026

01 Briefing what happened

Google sends its AI chips into orbit for the first time, to test running AI on sunlight in space

A SpaceX flight carried Google's first test satellite for data centres in space, with 129 other payloads. Crew-13 reached the space station in record time, and NATO will ask its members for space forces.

Google AI chips in the test satellite, about one server's worth

they share about 1 kilowatt of solar power [3]

5-8x

the power one solar panel makes in the right orbit, against the same panel on the ground

Google's figure, given by its project lead Travis Beals [5]

15-20 min

how long the chips can run before they must switch off to cool

Google says its next two satellites, due in 2027, should run without stopping [3]

130

payloads on the same SpaceX flight

the record is 143, set by Transporter-1 in January 2021 [6]

The lead story — what happened

Google's first test satellite for running AI in space reached orbit on 1 October, on a SpaceX flight from California called Transporter-18. [1][7][4]
The fridge-sized satellite, built with Planet Labs, carries four of Google's own AI chips, called TPUs, about one server's worth of computing. [3][5]
It runs on about 1 kilowatt of solar power and answers questions with Gemini, Google's AI model, in short bursts. [3][2]
Every 15 to 20 minutes the chips must switch off to cool down, because in space there is no air to carry the heat away. [3][1]
Google says a solar panel in the right orbit makes five to eight times the power that the same panel makes on the ground. [5][2]
That matters because data centres may use about 3% of the world's electricity by 2030, roughly double their share today, the International Energy Agency projects. [2]
Data centres on the ground also face growing opposition from the people who live near them, and orbit puts them far from anyone's home. [2][1]
In ground tests the chips survived radiation equal to five years in orbit, but still made about one silent error in every three million answers. [3][1]
Every answer still has to come back down by radio, which is hard and costly at large scale. A University of Pittsburgh professor puts it this way: "the best data compression is answers." [2]
The same flight carried two tests of beaming power. [3] Cowboy Space's Reason-1 may send power to the ground by laser from late October, and Star Catcher's Protostar will beam power to a small satellite. [3][6]
Transporter-18 carried 130 payloads in all, including NASA's SPRITE telescope, Starfish Space's first Otter inspector and two Varda capsules that make medicines in orbit. [4][6]
Google estimates that by the mid-2030s, power in orbit could cost about what US data centres pay for electricity. [3] That needs launches to fall to $200 a kilogram, and Starship to fly about 180 times a year. [3]

1xPanel on the ground

5-8xSame panel in orbit

Google says one solar panel in the right orbit makes five to eight times the power it makes on the ground. That gap is the reason it is testing AI chips in space.

Who is involved

Google

the US company behind the Gemini AI and the TPU chips; it is testing whether its AI can run in orbit
Planet Labs

a US satellite maker and operator; it built the test satellite with Google
SpaceX

the US rocket company that launched it; it has its own plans for data centres in orbit
Cowboy Space and Star Catcher

two start-ups on the same flight, each testing a way to send power by laser

How it unfolded

25 Sep Google's chief Sundar Pichai says the test will show whether its chips can survive in space [5]
1 Oct, 18:32 GMT Transporter-18 lifts off from California with 130 payloads [4]
About an hour later the Google satellite is released into orbit [4]
Late October Cowboy Space may try beaming power down to a ground station [3]
2027 two more Google satellites test laser links between them [1][5]
Mid-2030s Google's estimate for launches cheap enough to make the plan pay [3]

Where this points

Watch for Google's first report on how the four chips cope with radiation and heat, and whether Cowboy Space's laser reaches the ground in late October. [1][3]

What is pushing on the whole day

The bar and the word are our reading of how hard each one is pushing today. The arrow is where it is heading. The evidence is in the stories below.

Computers moving into orbit Building↑

Google's test satellite carries four AI chips to see how they cope with radiation and heat. [1] Satlyt, a start-up in Kenya and California, raised $8 million to run AI software on satellites already flying. [25] NaviGate's software let a satellite work out its own position without a ground team. [28]

Militaries planning for space Building↑

NATO will set space targets for its members for the first time. [14] European governments are preparing up to 24 billion euros for a joint military space project. [15] The US spy-satellite agency flew on a Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time. [12]

Countries building their own space systems Building↑

Canada's government began paying for home-grown rockets this spring. [20] Iceye and Nokia say each country using their satellites would own and control them. [18] China is building Guowang, a state-run internet network planned at about 13,000 satellites. [22]

Launches piling up High↑

SpaceX launched three rockets in one day and landed four boosters in a day for the first time. [12] Transporter-18 was the 110th Falcon 9 flight of 2026. [4] China has made 70 launch attempts this year and wants more than 100. [22]

The rest of the day

16 more stories on this beat.

Each with its own sources. None of these is a link to the story above.

02
Crew-13 reaches the station in record time

Four astronauts docked at the International Space Station on 1 October, 7 hours and 55 minutes after launching from Florida. [11] That is the fastest trip a US spacecraft has made there; the old record, set by Crew-11, was just under 15 hours. [9][11] Commander Jessica Watkins, a geologist, became the first Black woman to command a spacecraft. [10] Before launch, SpaceX cut a leaking valve out of the fuelled capsule and welded in a new one, a repair it had never done before. [10]

under 15 hCrew-11's trip
7 h 55 minCrew-13's trip
Two crews on the same kind of capsule to the same station. The trip time depends mostly on how far away the station is when the capsule launches.

Why it matters — The trip is short when the station is close to the capsule at launch, and long when it is far away. [11] The crew they replace can now come home, with undocking planned for 5 October. [8]
03
NATO will ask its members for space forces

NATO's members have long promised the alliance aircraft, tanks and troops, in a plan that is updated every four years. [14] For the first time that plan will include targets for space, Johnny Stringer, a senior NATO commander, told a conference in Britain this week. [14] He wants members to promise results rather than hand over their secret satellites. [14] Members with no satellites of their own could pay for commercial pictures or communications instead. [14] Separately, European governments are preparing up to 24 billion euros for SPACE, a joint military project for satellite communications, surveillance and missile warning. [15]

Why it matters — Space would join aircraft and tanks on the list of things NATO counts when it plans for war. [14] The targets are not due for two years, and Stringer says that is too slow. [14]
04
Falcon Heavy flies its first spy mission

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy, three Falcon 9 boosters joined side by side, launched a secret satellite called NROL-97 from Florida at 03:54 GMT on 2 October. [12][13] It was the first time the US National Reconnaissance Office, which runs the country's spy satellites, used the Falcon Heavy. [12] It has flown 22 times on the smaller Falcon 9. [12] The payload was heavy, so the centre booster was thrown away while the two side boosters landed back at Cape Canaveral. [13][12]

Why it matters — It was SpaceX's third launch in one day, and the first day it landed four boosters. [12] The high orbit it aimed for could point to a satellite that watches one region all the time, NASASpaceflight says, and the spy agency is unlikely to say what it is. [13]
05
Canada plans its own rockets

Canada Rocket Company, a Toronto start-up of about 30 people, will build a $30 million engine test site at the airport in London, Ontario. [20][19] It is named after Jeremy Hansen, the Canadian astronaut who flew around the Moon, and should be fully working by 2028. [19] The company skipped small rockets to design a reusable medium-sized one, and hopes to launch it by 2032. [20] Canada's government started paying for home-grown rockets this spring, after US tariffs and talk of making Canada a US state. [20]

Why it matters — Canada's satellites usually fly on American rockets. [20] The company's chief executive says Canada's government might one day put up to half a billion dollars into a launch capability of its own. [20]
06
China pushes for 100 launches in a year

China launched two rockets in under a day on 23 and 24 September, carrying satellites for its Guowang internet network and its Yaogan series. [22] That took China to 70 launch attempts in 2026, SpaceNews counts. [22] To pass 100 in a year for the first time, it needs at least 31 more before January. [22] Guowang is run by a state company and is planned to reach about 13,000 satellites. [22]

Jan-Mar18 launches
Apr-Jun26 launches
Jul-Sep26 launches
Oct-Dec, needed for 10031 launches
China's launches in each quarter of 2026, and the 31 it needs in the last quarter to pass 100 for the year.

Why it matters — The busiest months are still ahead, including Shenzhou-24, China's next crewed flight, likely around November. [22] Its crew may include a Pakistani pilot, who would be the first foreign astronaut to visit Tiangong, China's space station. [22]
07
US Space Force retires its oldest missile watchers

The US Space Force has retired the Defense Support Program, a family of satellites that watched for missile launches for more than five decades. [16] They were among the first satellites to warn the US military of missile attacks from space. [16] Before retiring them, the Space Force flew the last of these Cold War satellites through one final exercise of moves in orbit. [17]

Why it matters — Missile warning from space is also one of the three jobs in the joint military project European governments are now planning. [15]
08
Iceye and Nokia team up on government satellites

Iceye, a Finnish company that flies radar satellites, is working with Nokia to build secure broadband satellite networks for governments. [18] The first satellites are due to launch in 2028. [18] The two say each country would own and control its satellites, ground stations and terminals. [18] Four new Iceye satellites reached orbit on SpaceX's Transporter-18 flight on 1 October. [4]

Why it matters — It takes Iceye beyond pictures of the ground and into carrying governments' communications. [18]
09
Venus's haze is dust from shooting stars

A yellowish haze low in Venus's clouds is made of dust from meteors, scientists at Tohoku University in Japan report. [21] The Venera and Pioneer Venus probes first saw it in the 1970s. [21] Meteors burn up in the air and leave tiny particles, and sulfuric acid then gathers around them. [21] The team, led by Hiroki Karyu, built a computer model of the process and published it in Nature Astronomy. [21] The model ruled out volcanic ash and surface dust. [21]

Why it matters — The same work explains iron sulfate in Venus's air, which had been soaking up ultraviolet light for reasons nobody could pin down. [21] Karyu says dust from space is likely to matter for the air of planets around other stars too. [21]
10
Rocket Lab wins 20 launches from Synspective

Rocket Lab announced on 30 September a 20-launch deal with Synspective, a Japanese company. [23] It is the largest commercial contract its small Electron rocket has won. [23] Synspective builds Strix radar satellites, which can see the ground through cloud and in the dark. [24] Rocket Lab's flight from New Zealand on 25 September was set to carry the 13th of them, and Synspective wants 30 in orbit by the end of the decade. [24]

Why it matters — Electron lifts at most about 300 kilograms, and each Strix satellite weighs about 100, so a buyer of small satellites is the customer it is built for. [24]
11
Satlyt raises $8m to process data in orbit

Satlyt, a start-up based in Nairobi, Kenya, and Sunnyvale, California, raised $8 million on 1 October. [25] Satellites collect far more data than they can send down cheaply, so Satlyt puts AI software on board to sort it in orbit. [25] Only the most needed results then come down. [25] In May it ran Google's Gemma AI model in space, and it aims to be on 30% of all satellites outside Starlink by the end of the decade. [25]

Why it matters — Its founder, Rama Afullo, says he pitched data centres in orbit to Google and to SpaceX years ago and was turned down both times. [25]
12
Foundational raises money for laser tracking

Foundational, a London start-up, came out of secrecy on 1 October with 8.2 million pounds, which it calls Europe's largest earliest-stage funding round for a space company. [26] It fires laser pulses at small mirrors on satellites and times the light's return to measure exactly where they are. [26] Sixteen satellites already carry its mirrors, and about 60 more are waiting to launch. [26] It plans 10 to 20 automated ground stations, with service from early 2027. [26]

Why it matters — Without exact positions, operators end up treating a small satellite as if it were the size of a football field, the company says. [26] Its mirrors keep working after a satellite dies, so dead ones can still be tracked. [26]
13
Charter Space raises $5m to insure spacecraft

Charter Space, a company in California, raised $5 million to sell insurance for spacecraft. [27] Its chief executive estimated this year that about 97% of spacecraft in orbit fly uninsured. [27] Insurers used to judge the risk of hundreds of parts by hand, which kept cover out of reach for most missions. [27] Charter says its tools cut the time to get a policy from months to about two weeks. [27]

3 of 100
spacecraft in orbit with insurance, out of every 100
Charter Space's own estimate: about 97 in every 100 spacecraft in orbit fly with no insurance.

Why it matters — It has helped insure more than 50 companies and wants to cover new kinds of mission, such as nuclear-powered spacecraft and Moon landers. [27]
14
An Italian satellite works out where it is

NaviGate, a start-up from Sapienza University of Rome, ran its software on a satellite already in orbit, D-Orbit's ION carrier, and let it work out its own position. [28] It used only the raw readings from the GPS receiver the satellite already carried. [28] Its best result was accurate to about 5 centimetres. [28] Usually ground teams work out a satellite's exact path from repeated radio contacts. [28]

Why it matters — As fleets grow to thousands of satellites, doing this on the ground costs more money, staff and time, NaviGate says. [28]
15
Honda and Redwire plan robots for space stations

Honda announced on 1 October that it will work with Redwire to develop robots that help crews on commercial space stations. [29] They are looking at putting Honda's many-fingered robot hand on Redwire's Staark robotic arm. [29] The pair would handle experiments and other jobs in orbit. [29]

Why it matters — The robots are meant to take routine experiment work off the crews of commercial space stations. [29]
16
Gas for the first stars, seen in four early galaxies

Astronomers using ALMA, a ground-based telescope in northern Chile, found neutral gas, the raw fuel for stars, in four galaxies from 700 to 850 million years after the Big Bang. [30] This gas gives off no visible or infrared light, so the Webb and Hubble space telescopes cannot see it. [30] The galaxies' stars were packed far more tightly than in galaxies today. [30] The study, led by Yoshinobu Fudamoto of Chiba University in Japan, is in The Astronomical Journal. [30]

Why it matters — Neutral gas is what stars form from, and these galaxies existed when the universe was only 5 to 6% of its current age. [30] The team plans a bigger sample, combining ALMA with Webb. [30]
17
October's sky: Saturn bright, Jupiter hidden

Saturn is at its brightest for the year around 4 October, with its rings tilted open by 12 degrees. [31] On 6 October, before dawn, the Moon will pass in front of Jupiter for viewers in eastern North America. [31] The Orionid meteor shower, dust left by Halley's Comet, runs from 2 October to 7 November. [32] It peaks overnight on 21 to 22 October. [32]

Why it matters — The Orionids are best seen between midnight and dawn, and Saturn's rings show in even a small telescope. [32][31]

02 Lesson why it matters

Why satellites now send down answers, not raw pictures

A satellite collects far more than its radio can send down, so a computer on board picks out the answer and sends only that.

The twist

A photo of the sea takes a long time to send. A short note saying where the ship is takes almost none. So a satellite with a computer on board sends the note.

The picture

1 of 20

the one picture worth sending, out of 20 taken

Made-up numbers. If one picture in twenty shows a ship, sending only that one, or just the ship's position, leaves the radio free for everything else.

How it works

A satellite collects data far faster than its radio can send it down
Sending everything down is slow and costs money
So a computer on board looks at the data first
It sends down only the answer, such as where a ship is
The work moves into orbit, and so do its problems: power, heat and radiation

The same force, elsewhere today

Where this chain is also running, in today's other stories.

Satlyt raises $8m to process data in orbit

Satlyt puts AI software on satellites already flying, so they sort what they collect up there and send down only the most needed results.
An Italian satellite works out where it is

The satellite turned its own raw GPS readings into its position on board, instead of sending them to a ground team to work out.

Where you've seen this

A smoke alarm

it does not send the air in your kitchen anywhere; it beeps only when it finds smoke

A blood test

the lab machine reads thousands of numbers, and the doctor gets a one-page result

A chain of shops

head office gets each shop's daily totals, not every receipt

The catch

Once the raw data is thrown away, nobody on the ground can check what the computer in orbit missed.

And the whole of it

Whoever reads only the answer is trusting a choice made in orbit about what mattered. Most of us already live with answers like that, from a blood test result to a bank's yes or no on a loan.

03 Truth what's really going on

What is really going on

Google flew four of its AI chips into orbit on a SpaceX rocket, to test whether sunlight in space could one day run its AI. [1][3] By Google's own sums the idea pays only if launches get far cheaper, and that depends on SpaceX's Starship flying about 180 times a year. [3] Away from the lead, the day's biggest moves were military: NATO and European governments planning for space, and the US spy agency's first Falcon Heavy flight. [14][15][12]

Why it works on us — Five to eight times the power is one big number, and it is easy to repeat. [5] Whether the plan pays depends on a launch price that takes a much longer sum to work out. [3]

Who gains

SpaceX — It sold a ride to a rival's data-centre test, and its own pitch to investors when it listed its shares in June leaned on data centres in space. [2][4]
Planet Labs — It built Google's test satellite, and Google plans two more test satellites in 2027. [3][5]
Rocket Lab — Synspective's 20-launch order is the largest commercial contract its Electron rocket has won. [23]
Canada Rocket Company — Anger at US tariffs turned into government money for home-grown rockets, and its chief says far more may follow. [20]
Companies that sell satellite services — NATO says members with no satellites of their own could pay for commercial pictures and communications instead. [14]

Who pays

Astronomers — They warn that data centres in orbit would add to the light pollution already making the night sky harder to study. [1]
Taxpayers in European countries — Their governments are preparing up to 24 billion euros for SPACE, a joint military space project. [15]
Owners of most spacecraft — About 97% of spacecraft in orbit fly with no insurance, by Charter Space's estimate, so a lost one is a loss their owners carry alone. [27]
Satellite operators — Without exact positions they must treat a small satellite as if it were the size of a football field, Foundational says. [26]

What nobody knows yet

Open questions from across today’s stories — ours included.

01

Whether Google's chips and cooling work in orbit.

The satellite only reached orbit on 1 October and Google has published no results yet. On the ground the chips made about one silent error in three million answers. [1][3]
02

Whether data centres in orbit can ever pay.

Google's sums need launches at $200 a kilogram and about 180 Starship flights a year, and neither exists yet. Scientific American notes that launch and replacement costs may eat up what the free sunlight saves. [3][2]
03

What NROL-97 is.

The US spy-satellite agency keeps its payloads secret. NASASpaceflight says the heavy rocket and high orbit could point to a big satellite that watches one region. [13]
04

What made Crew-13's valve leak.

Engineers are still testing the valve SpaceX cut out, and no cause has been given. [10]
05

How NATO will count space forces its members keep secret.

NATO is asking for results rather than the satellites themselves, and its space targets are not due for two years. [14]
06

Whether Canada's government will pay for a home-grown rocket.

Canada Rocket Company's chief says Canada's government might offer up to half a billion dollars, but nothing has been promised and the rocket is not due before 2032. [20]
07

Whether China reaches 100 launches this year.

It needs at least 31 in the last three months, more than the 26 it managed in each of the two quarters before. [22]
08

How sure the Venus result is.

It comes from a computer model checked against what probes measured decades ago, not from a new sample of the haze. [21]

04 Hope carry this

Four astronauts reached the International Space Station 7 hours and 55 minutes after launch, the fastest trip a US spacecraft has made. Their commander, Jessica Watkins, is the first Black woman to command a spacecraft.

Also true today

SpaceX fixed Crew-13's leaking capsule by cutting out the faulty valve and welding in a new one, and no leak showed on launch day.
A haze on Venus, first seen by probes in the 1970s, has been explained: scientists at Tohoku University in Japan found it is dust left behind by shooting stars.