Overview
Terminals in Volume
The SpaceX Starlink factory at 858 FM 1209 in Bastrop County builds Starlink user terminals, the dish-and-router kits that connect subscribers to SpaceX's satellite internet service. In March 2025 the line produced about 15,000 dishes a day. SpaceX plans to double the size of the plant in 2026 and move all Starlink kit production to Bastrop County, with a target of 10 million kits a year by the end of 2026.
It is the founding plant of the SpaceX Bastrop Complex, about 30 miles east of Austin. The complex has since added the Gigasat Factory for AI1 orbital data center satellites and the Blades and Vanes Foundry.
| Operator | SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies Corp.) |
|---|---|
| Address | 858 FM 1209, Bastrop, Texas (Bastrop County) |
| Building area | About 1.1 million sq ft, rising to about 1.6 million sq ft after the current buildout |
| Terminal output | About 15,000 dishes a day (March 2025); target of 10 million kits a year by the end of 2026 |
| Workforce | About 1,590 SpaceX employees at Bastrop (June 2026) |
| 2026 expansion | $855M kit production expansion; enterprise project nomination approved by Bastrop County on May 26, 2026 |
| 2025 expansion | $280M+ capital; about 1 million sq ft over three years; 400+ jobs |
| State grant | $17.3M from the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund (TSIF), created by the 2023 Texas CHIPS Act |
| Packaging production | Targeted for the end of 2026 |
Product lines
What the Factory Makes
| Line | What it is | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Starlink user terminals | Consumer and enterprise dishes, routers and mounts | Volume production |
| Terminal components | Kit-level parts and subassemblies | Volume production |
| Printed circuit boards | In-house boards for Starlink hardware | Expanding; production targeted for end of 2026 |
| Panel-level packaging | Fan-out packaging of Starlink chips on large rectangular panels, starting with radio frequency (RF) chips | Equipment going in since April 2026; production targeted for end of 2026 |
| Failure analysis lab | Quality and reliability testing of packaged chips | Part of the 2025 expansion |
Chip packaging
Packaging Comes to Texas
Packaging and circuit boards are the steps Bastrop brings onshore; the wafers still come from Europe.
STMicroelectronics designs Starlink's phased-array chips with SpaceX, makes them in its fabs in Crolles and Rousset in France and in Malta, and packages them in Muar, Malaysia, with Innolux in Taiwan taking overflow. The Bastrop line moves the packaging step to Texas, using fan-out panel-level packaging (FOPLP) on 700 mm by 700 mm panels, among the largest panel formats in the industry.
Governor Greg Abbott announced the $17.3M grant on March 12, 2025, and the state said the finished plant will be the largest circuit board and panel-level packaging facility in North America. Reuters reported on April 10, 2026 that equipment was going in, that the first products will be Starlink RF chips, and that production still targets the end of 2026 after some delay. Digitimes reported the same month that yield problems could push full-scale output to mid-2027.
The grant and the $280M commitment are scoped to Starlink. Packaging radiation-tolerant compute chips for the AI1 satellites built next door is a later step with no published date.
| Step | Today | With Bastrop packaging |
|---|---|---|
| Design | STMicroelectronics with SpaceX | Unchanged |
| Wafer fabrication | ST Crolles and Rousset (France), ST Malta | Unchanged |
| Packaging | ST Muar (Malaysia); Innolux (Taiwan) overflow | Bastrop, Texas |
| Circuit boards | Outside suppliers | Bastrop, Texas |
| Terminal assembly | Bastrop, Texas | Bastrop, Texas |
Timeline
Expansion Timeline
| Date | Event | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Fall 2024 | Research lab opens | First chip research and development lab and circuit board plant at Bastrop |
| March 12, 2025 | Grant and expansion announced | $17.3M TSIF grant; $280M+ committed; 400+ jobs; 1 million sq ft over three years |
| March 2025 | 15,000 dishes a day | About 5.5 million dishes a year |
| September 2025 | Office expansion | $8M, 80,000 sq ft office addition (state licensing filing) |
| February 2026 | Site clearing | Land cleared on both sides of the plant; a 50,000 sq ft parking garage under way |
| April 2026 | Packaging equipment | Reuters reports equipment going in; first products are Starlink RF chips |
| May 26, 2026 | Kit production expansion | Bastrop County approves an enterprise project nomination for an $855M expansion |
| End of 2026 | Production target | Circuit board and panel-level packaging lines in production |
The Texas chip chain
Bastrop in the Texas Chip Chain
With packaging in house, Bastrop becomes one step in a Texas chain for SpaceX and Tesla silicon:
- Design: Tesla AI silicon teams at Giga Texas
- Fabrication: Samsung Taylor now, Terafab Gibbons Creek later
- Packaging: the Starlink factory at Bastrop
- Satellite integration: the Gigasat Factory next door
- Launch: SpaceX Starbase on Starship
The TIE NGMM Center at UT Austin, funded by an $840M DARPA award, researches the three-dimensional heterogeneous integration packaging that later generations of these chips will use.
Record
Dataset Record
- Sources
- Office of the Governor (March 2025), Reuters (April 2026), Digitimes via Tom's Hardware (June 2025), Elgin Courier (May 2026), Bloomberg, state licensing filings
- Supplier ring
- See the Bastrop supplier ring
- Last verified
- Q4 2026