SpaceX's Transporter-18 rideshare sends 130 satellites to orbit, including Google's AI-chip testbed

SpaceX launched its Transporter-18 rideshare mission on Thursday, sending 130 satellites into orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California — including Google’s first prototype for AI data centres in space.

The Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4E at 11:32am PDT (6:32pm UTC) on 1 October, the 110th Falcon 9 mission of 2026, NASASpaceFlight reported (https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2026/10/transporter-18/). Payloads were released over an 11-minute period, from T+54:22 to T+1:05:15.

The highest-profile payload was Google’s Project Suncatcher M1 prototype, built with Planet Labs, which will test how Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs) cope with launch vibration, space radiation and the thermal extremes of orbit. Data gathered will feed a follow-up 2027 mission testing laser links between two Suncatcher prototypes, CNN reported (https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/01/science/google-ai-data-center-satellites-space).

Also aboard was Starfish Space’s Otter, a 335kg satellite servicing vehicle roughly the size of a kitchen oven. Otter separated from the upper stage a little over an hour after launch and powered up for orbital operations, GeekWire reported (https://www.geekwire.com/2026/spacex-rideshare-starfish-space-first-otter/). It will fly NASA’s $15m SSPICY mission, rendezvousing with dead US-owned satellites within hundreds of metres to gather spin-rate, spin-axis and surface-condition data — a precursor to satellite life-extension and deorbiting work.

NASA’s SPRITE CubeSat led the deployment sequence, studying shock waves in supernova remnants and ionising radiation from star-forming galaxies; Varda Space’s W-8 and W-9 space factories were the last to separate. The first-stage booster, B1082-25, returned to Landing Zone 4.