Two satellites by early 2027
Google said it would put two prototype satellites carrying its own chips into orbit by early 2027. One went up on Oct 1. Does the second follow before the deadline Google set for itself?
The Quote
Our next step is a learning mission in partnership with Planet to launch two prototype satellites by early 2027 that will test our hardware in orbit
Google, announcing Project Suncatcher on The Keyword, Nov 4, 2025Where it stands
- Kept First prototype satellite in orbit. Launched Oct 1, 2026
- Not yet due Second prototype satellite in orbit. Early 2027
What would settle it
Launches are public. SpaceX lists what flies on each rideshare mission and the Space Force catalogues what reaches orbit, so neither satellite depends on Google's word. For now the first one does: the company says it has made contact and that the satellite is operating as expected, which is Google marking its own work until the catalogue shows the object. Two things to hold on to. The Oct 1 post says "our prototype satellite", one of them, and does not mention the second. And "early 2027" is Google's phrase, not a date. This page reads it as the end of March, and if the second satellite flies in April nobody should call that a broken promise without saying how the line was drawn.
Early 2027, read here as the end of March
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days to go, on 31 March 2027
Alphabet
GOOGL
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the close
- Since
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- High
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- Low
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- Volume vs 20 days
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The people
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Sundar Pichai
CEO, Alphabet and Google
Posted about the launch himself. The sentence with the deadline in it is the company's, from the announcement eleven months earlier.
Filings since 4 November 2025
Alphabet, from the SEC's own feed
- Checking EDGAR...
On the record since then
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- 2026-10-30 Statement Google says the satellite launched on Oct 1 has finished its commissioning checklist and that its TPU answered a first prompt from orbit this week, a haiku from the Gemma 4 model downlinked over Svalbard. The post then says that showing the TPUs work in space "paves the way for our next milestone of twin interconnected satellites in 2027". The 2025 plan said two prototype satellites by early 2027. This post counts the one already up as the prototype, calls the next step twin satellites and drops the word early. Whether that is a third and fourth satellite or a new name for the second is not said. The checkpoint here stays at the end of March 2027. Source
- 2026-10-28 Statement Pichai's remarks on the third-quarter results, posted by Google, list among the quarter's work that the company "launched our TPUs into space with Project Suncatcher". They do not mention a second satellite or a date for it. Source
- 2026-10-02 Statement Pichai on X: "Today's successful launch with our partner @planet prototype satellite shows how far we've come...and how far there is to go." Checked at source. Source
- 2026-10-01 Statement Google said its prototype satellite, built with Planet, reached orbit on SpaceX's Transporter-18 rideshare mission, that the team had confirmed contact and that it was operating as expected. The post speaks of one satellite. The plan announced in 2025 was for two. Source
- 2025-11-04 Statement Google announced Project Suncatcher, a research effort to run its machine learning chips on solar-powered satellites, and gave the first milestone a deadline: two prototype satellites launched with Planet by early 2027. Source
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