Google is set to send its first prototype AI satellite into orbit on October 1, in a test of whether its computing hardware can work in space.

The refrigerator-sized spacecraft, nicknamed MVP, carries four Trillium-generation Tensor Processing Units, or TPUs, Google’s custom AI chips. It will fly aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-18 rideshare mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The satellite was built with Earth-imaging company Planet and will test how TPUs handle launch forces, radiation and the thermal extremes of low Earth orbit. It is a hardware survival test, not an operational data center, Google said in its September 24 update, “Behind Project Suncatcher.”

Because space has no air to carry heat away, the chips will run Gemini workloads in roughly 15-minute bursts before shutting down to cool. The satellite is powered by about one kilowatt of solar power and is designed to operate for about a year.

The next milestone, planned for 2027, involves two satellites testing laser links between them. The October 1 date is the current target and could still move. If the test succeeds, it could open the way to solar-powered AI data centers in orbit, where sunlight is constant.