Aerospace company SpaceX has announced that it will build a 10 GW solar manufacturing facility in Bastrop County near Austin, Texas, as part of its aims to launch AI data centers in Earth’s orbit.
According to the company’s filings submitted to Bastrop County, the facility will have two floors. Each floor is targeted to have a production capacity of 5 GW of solar cells.
SpaceX also plans to double the size of its existing Starlink manufacturing facility, where it plans to manufacture solar cells and Starlink products.
In 2021, the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory selected SpaceX to launch perovskite solar cells into space to evaluate their potential and assess the durability of the materials.
Other organizations have also been working to generate solar energy in space. Researchers at Northumbria University are studying the production of wireless electricity from space to Earth by harvesting solar energy.
