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Google CEO Sundar Pichai wants to use SpaceX's Starship for quantum computing clusters in space. The executive shared his idea in a social media conversation with Elon Musk, who concurred and replied that it was likely in the future. Musk's comments came after, SpaceX static fired the 232-foot-tall rocket earlier today in Texas.
The Super Heavy booster's static fire came less than a month after Starship Flight 6, and given that the booster's static fire is one of the few check items before a test flight, the next Starship flight could take place in January as indicated by an earlier NASA request to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The next Starship flight will again focus on the upper-stage booster as it will inform SpaceX about whether it can proceed to attempt a risky tower catch with the spacecraft.
SpaceX Static Fires Starship Super Heavy Booster For Eight Seconds Ahead Of Flight 7
As Google released its quantum computing chip called Willow, CEO Sundar Pichai wondered in a conversation with Elon Musk whether Starship could be used to make a quantum computing cluster in space. Pichai responded to Musk's remarks on X, and the two agreed about the need to increase solar panel use on Earth. According to Pichai, Google's Willow chip was able to perform a computation that would take a supercomputer ten septillion years in less than five minutes.
In its blog post, Google shared that the "mind-boggling number exceeds known timescales in physics and vastly exceeds the age of the universe," adding that "It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse."
Google manufactured Willow at its manufacturing facility in Santa Barbara, California. The next steps with the chip will be to "demonstrate a first "useful, beyond-classical" computation on today's quantum chips that is relevant to a real-world application," according to the company.
While SpaceX has remained silent about Starship Flight 7 since Flight 6 flew in November, it has quietly made progress with the first and second-stage rockets destined to fly in January. Since SpaceX has upgraded its design, the star of the show in Flight 7 will be the upper-stage spacecraft. Some changes on the ship include newer heatshield tiles, a different tile layout, changes to the upper fins, larger tanks and added pipes for the Raptor engines.
SpaceX tested the new Starship spacecraft ahead of Flight 6, and footage of the test confirmed that the rocket features larger tanks. With Flight 7, SpaceX will have to fly the ship with catch hardware as well if it plans to attempt a tower catch of the ship on the next flight as indicated by Elon Musk.
So far, tests of the new upper-stage spacecraft have focused on its tanks as SpaceX takes time to verify their design. These tanks will play a crucial role in the Starship program's future, especially since SpaceX aims to use a variant of the upper stage to launch a propellant depot in Earth orbit.
After it shipped Starship Flight 7's booster to the launch pad last week, SpaceX started its pre-flight tests by first running the rocket's propellant pumps in a spin prime test. This test was followed by an eight-second static fire of an unknown quantity of engines earlier today. SpaceX typically confirms these details on its social media, and its post indicated that all engines were fired.
Starship Flight 7 will also see SpaceX attempt the third tower catch of the Super Heavy booster so far. The first attempt on Flight 5 was successful; however, SpaceX chose to skip the catch with Flight 6 due to problems with the launch tower.
Static fire of the Flight 7 Super Heavy booster pic.twitter.com/xqfykcq7QU
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 9, 2024
About the author: Ramish is a seasoned technology writer and editor with more than a decade of experience. He specializes in semiconductor fabrication and market analysis. With a background in finance and supply chain management - via his bachelors in Finance and a micromasters in supply chain management from MIT - Ramish combines financial rigor with deep industry insight to deliver accurate and authoritative coverage.
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