Google thinks SpaceX’s Starship has to launch 1,800 times before space data centers get off the ground

Google is developing orbital data centers, networks of satellites in space that would process computing tasks. The company's white paper estimates that to make this economically viable, SpaceX's Starship rocket would need to launch approximately 1,800 times over the next decade to achieve cost-effective launch prices. This matters because the rockets required to scale orbital data centers in a cost-effective way do not yet exist, and Google is planning for computing infrastructure that will meet future demand rather than just today's workloads. Google has already launched a prototype satellite carrying its Tensor Processing Unit into space to test whether its chips can function in the orbital environment.