SpaceX Builds In-House Foundry To Boost Gas Turbine Production
1 Sept 2026 11:44 AM IST1 Sept 2026 11:44 AM IST
Facility In Texas Aims To Ease Power Supply Bottleneck For AI Data Centres
SpaceX is setting up a specialised foundry in Bastrop, Texas, to manufacture gas turbine blades and vanes and potentially accelerate turbine deployment by up to 18 months.
Commercial space firm SpaceX is constructing a specialised in-house foundry to manufacture high-spec gas turbine blades and vanes, CEO Elon Musk confirmed. Confirming the plans on social media platform X, Musk on Saturday noted that while SpaceX and Tesla are racing to scale solar panel production, natural gas remains necessary to bridge power demands for several years.
The strategic expansion targets a severe supply chain bottleneck that has stalled power generation required for artificial intelligence (AI) data centres across the United States.
A turbine blade foundry is a specialised manufacturing facility that uses advanced casting techniques to produce high-precision turbine blades and vanes for jet engines, aerospace systems and power-generation gas turbines.
"The limiting factor for nat gas turbine production is casting the blades & vanes," Musk stated. "By doing in-house casting at SpaceX, we can accelerate nat gas turbines coming online by up to 18 months, which is a profound game-changer."
The upcoming facility will be located in Bastrop, roughly 48 kilometres east of Austin - the state capital of Texas - adjacent to an existing Starlink manufacturing plant. The move follows SpaceX's quiet acquisition of approximately 830 acres of land in the area between March and June 2026.
Highlighting the dual utility of the move, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas noted in an August report that Raptor turbine pump castings and data centre turbine airfoil components use the same alloys and furnaces, allowing a single foundry to spread fixed costs across both aerospace and AI businesses.
The Bastrop facility will cast single-crystal nickel-superalloy components built to withstand extreme heat between 1,650°C and 1,980°C in turbine hot sections.
Specialised global foundries capable of producing these parts are fully booked through 2029–2030, leaving energy project backlogs nationwide.
SpaceX has not released an official target date for operational completion, and state environmental regulatory filings for the site remain pending.
( Source : PTI )
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