SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Oct. 1, 2026 - On October 1, Google and Planet Labs launched a prototype satellite carrying four Google Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) aboard SpaceX's Transporter-18 rideshare mission.^[1][2] The satellite will test how the AI chips perform in space, including under cosmic radiation and extreme temperature swings.^[3][4] Google is the first major technology company to launch a dedicated mission to test AI processing infrastructure in Earth orbit.^[5] Impact Insight. Rideshare missions carry dozens of small satellites from different owners on one rocket, which has made it far cheaper to put experiments into orbit. The link to planetary defense is indirect: every new satellite adds to the traffic that must be tracked, though onboard computing of this kind could one day help spacecraft spot and react to small objects on their own.