SpaceX building Starlink manufacturing factory in Austin, Texas

The contents of the Starlink Kit for customers, which includes the satellite antenna dish, a stand, its power supply, and a WiFi router.

SpaceX

SpaceX plans to build a new factory in Austin, Texas – adding another expansion to the region from one of Elon Musk’s companies after the billionaire founder moved there last year.

The plan for the facility was revealed in a company job posting, which seeks an engineer for its Starlink satellite internet division.

“To keep up with global demand, SpaceX is breaking ground on a new, state of the art manufacturing facility in Austin, TX,” the company said in the posting.

SpaceX noted that the factory is designed for “high volume manufacturing,” specifically to make “millions of consumer facing devices.” For its satellite internet network, those devices are known as the Starlink Kit and include the antenna (or dish) that connects to the satellites, Wi-Fi routers and antenna mounting hardware

Currently the company’s Starlink unit is based in Redmond, Washington – a few miles east of Seattle. The Redmond facility has developed and produced Starlink equipment to date, with the company building upwards of 120 satellites per month.

The company did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on its plans for the Austin factory.

SpaceX’s plans for the new factory were first reported by Austin-based NBC affiliate KXAN.

A Starlink user terminal installed on the roof of a building in Canada.

SpaceX

Starlink is the company’s capital-intensive project to build an interconnected internet network with thousands of satellites, known in the space industry as a constellation, designed to deliver high-speed internet to consumers anywhere on the planet. 

To date SpaceX has launched more than 1,000 satellites for Starlink. In October, SpaceX began rolling out early service in a public beta to customers in the U.S., Canada and the U.K., with service priced at $99 a month, plus a $499 upfront cost for the hardware needed to connect to the network.

The job posting did not provide further details on the Austin factory, such as square feet, when it is expected to become operational, or its intended production goals. SpaceX’s posting did note that the role will include working remote in Austin and traveling about a quarter of the time to SpaceX’s headquarters in Los Angeles, “until Austin facility is fully established.”

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