Elon Musk's SpaceX Building Starlink Factory in Texas

SpaceX, the space company of Tesla Inc. TSLA founder Elon Musk, plans to build a new factory in Texas for its Starlink satellite network service, a company job posting has indicated.

What Happened: The job posting reveals that SpaceX is seeking an Automation and Controls engineer for its Starlink satellite internet division. The job position will involve traveling about 25% of the time to SpaceX headquarters in Los Angeles until the Austin facility is fully established.

SpaceX said in the job posting it is breaking ground on a “new, state of the art” manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas. The factory will manufacture consumer-facing devices, including Starlink dishes, Wi-Fi routers, and antenna mounting hardware that will be shipped directly to consumers.

Elon Musk also took to Twitter to announce that he will be creating the city of Starbase in Texas. To a question whether the city will be dog friendly, Musk tweeted, “Very much so & its leader shall be The Doge,” alluding to Dogecoin DOGE/USD — a joke cryptocurrency he often touts.

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SpaceX is already developing its Starship rocket and testing the Starship prototypes at its Boca Chica launch facility on the South Texas coast.  

Starlink aims to provide high-speed internet to populations with little or no connectivity anywhere in the world through a constellation of tens of thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit.

Why It Matters: Starlink currently has a unit in Redmond, Washington, that manufactures satellites for the project. To date, Starlink has launched over 1,000 satellites and hopes to have 4,425 in orbit by 2024. The FCC has approved 11,943 satellites to be launched by Starlink.

In February, Starlink expanded the beta testing of the Starlink satellite network and began accepting pre-orders for the service both in the U.S. and internationally. Starlink plans to continue its expansion to near-global coverage of the populated world in 2021.

Starlink has been speculated as an IPO target for years. In September last year, Musk said Starlink has plans to IPO when cash flow is more predictable and retail investors would get top priority.

See Also: Green Eggs & SPAC: What Could Tweet From Elon Musk Mean?

Price Movement: Tesla closed 4.5% lower on Tuesday at $686.44, but added 0.3% in the after-hours session.