Most megafactories usually take years to go from conceptualization to construction, but a recent drone flyover of the Terafab showed that progress has already started on the ground less than five months after Musk unveiled it. However, the video doesn’t do justice to the true scale of its footprint, so X user Nic Cruz Patane created a visualization to help us understand how large the chip manufacturing facility is.

Terafab approximate size comparison between Giga Texas, the Pentagon, Apple Park, and the Mall of America.There has never been a building this large. Elon Musk says it will be the most valuable building by far. pic.twitter.com/GCmpfeduJnAugust 6, 2026

The site will reportedly have a floor space of at least 100 million square feet, making it larger than Giga Texas (10 million sq. ft), the Pentagon (6.6 million sq. ft), Apple Park (2.82 million sq. ft), and the Mall of America (5.6 million sq. ft), combined. This also makes it significantly larger than New Century Global Center in Chengdu, China, with has an interior space of “just” 18.9 million sq. ft.

While this might seem like an absurd amount of space for chip manufacturing, it appears that the Terafab will need it because it’s going to be more than just a chip fab making AI processors — instead, it will be an all-in-one facility that will produce logic and memory chips, as well as have lithography, packaging, and testing under one roof.

Elon Musk started talking about building his own chip manufacturing facility in late 2025 and officially announced the project in March of this year. The reasoning behind this project is that both SpaceX and Tesla will require at least 1TW of compute, which is more than ten times that current global chip supply.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang warned that a project like this will be an “extremely hard” challenge, but it appears that Musk is willing to put his massive resources on the line for this. Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan even said that he can “think of no better partner than Elon Musk” to explore “unconventional” ways of chip manufacturing.

Musk is no stranger to both leading and funding projects that otherwise seemed impossible. Although he did not found Tesla, his investment and leadership in the company led it to become an industry trailblazer in EVs. He fundamentally changed commercial space travel with SpaceX; something that used to be the purview of NASA and other national governments, and he also broke a record when he set up 100,000 Nvidia H200 GPUs in just 19 days back in 2024 — a process which Huang said usually takes four years.

It seems that Terafab is Musk’s biggest project to date, which is estimated to require up to $119 billion in investments. But even though it seems that this project already has a secure customer base in SpaceX and Tesla, the former acknowledges that there’s a risk that this ambitious megafactory may not be successful.

A new study is challenging one of the most persistent assumptions in space manufacturing: that building advanced composite structures beyond Earth is simply a matter of moving terrestrial production methods into orbit. Research published in npj Advanced Manufacturing examines how two defining features of the space environment—reduced gravity and reduced atmospheric pressure—can alter the manufacture of carbon-fiber-reinforced structures, materials widely regarded as essential for future spacecraft, habitats and large orbital infrastructure.

Carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers, commonly known as CFRPs, combine strong, lightweight carbon fibers with a polymer resin that binds the fibers into a rigid composite. Their exceptional strength-to-weight ratio makes them attractive for launch vehicles and spacecraft, where every kilogram matters. Yet manufacturing these materials is a delicate process. Fibers must be positioned accurately, resin must penetrate the reinforcement evenly, and gases or trapped voids must be removed before the material cures. On Earth, gravity and atmospheric pressure quietly assist—or complicate—each of these steps.

In space, those familiar forces change dramatically. Reduced gravity can alter how liquid resin flows through a carbon-fiber structure, while low pressure can encourage dissolved gases and volatile compounds to expand or escape. Together, these effects may influence impregnation, consolidation, curing and the final mechanical performance of a composite part. The new work by R. Strecker, T. Rieger, A. Tabelander and colleagues focuses on understanding these interactions before manufacturers attempt to produce increasingly complex structures in orbit.

The central issue is void formation. A composite that appears solid can contain microscopic pockets of air or vapor between its fibers. These voids interrupt the transfer of stress through the material and can reduce strength, stiffness and fatigue resistance. During conventional manufacturing on Earth, pressure is often applied to compress the layers and drive out unwanted gases while resin fills the spaces between fibers. In a reduced-gravity environment, however, buoyancy-driven movement is weakened, and the pathways through which bubbles travel may change. A bubble that would rise and escape during terrestrial processing could remain trapped inside the structure.

Pressure reduction introduces another layer of complexity. Lower ambient pressure can help remove volatile substances and trapped gases, but it can also cause dissolved gases in the resin to expand. If the resin is not sufficiently mobile, expanding bubbles may become locked in place as the material cures. The balance between degassing and bubble growth therefore becomes a critical manufacturing parameter. The study’s importance lies in treating pressure and gravity not as isolated variables, but as environmental conditions that can interact throughout the production cycle.

Resin flow is equally important. Carbon-fiber reinforcements are made from tightly packed filaments, creating narrow channels through which resin must travel. On Earth, gravity can influence resin distribution, especially in vertically oriented or large components. In reduced gravity, capillary forces and surface tension become relatively more significant. These forces can help draw resin into small spaces, but they may also create uneven wetting patterns depending on the fiber architecture, resin viscosity and processing orientation. Such changes could affect whether a component cures uniformly from its surface to its interior.

The findings carry implications far beyond laboratory samples. Future space manufacturers may seek to fabricate beams, pressure-vessel elements, antenna supports, solar-array components and repair patches directly in orbit. Producing these parts where they are needed could reduce the need to launch bulky finished structures from Earth. It could also enable designs too large to fit inside a rocket fairing, including trusses and habitation modules assembled gradually in space. But the economic and engineering promise of this approach depends on reliable quality control. A component that looks flawless may still fail if its internal fiber alignment, resin distribution or void content is inconsistent.

The research also highlights why manufacturing hardware designed for Earth cannot automatically be considered space-ready. Pumps, heaters, vacuum systems, molds and curing chambers must all operate under conditions in which heat transfer, fluid movement and gas removal behave differently. Temperature control is particularly important because resin viscosity changes strongly with temperature. A resin that flows readily during terrestrial processing might move more slowly or unevenly in orbit, while excessive heating could accelerate curing before impregnation is complete. Space-based production systems will therefore need carefully coordinated control of pressure, temperature, resin chemistry and processing time.

For engineers, the study provides a foundation for developing manufacturing protocols tailored to reduced-gravity environments. Instead of copying Earth-based workflows, future systems may need staged pressure changes, specialized fiber preforms, modified resin formulations or active bubble-management techniques. Sensors could monitor pressure, temperature and resin flow in real time, allowing automated systems to detect defects before a part is finished. Non-destructive inspection, including imaging and ultrasonic testing, will also be essential for verifying the integrity of components that cannot easily be returned to Earth for analysis.

The broader message is that space manufacturing is not merely an extension of industrial production—it is a new manufacturing regime governed by different physics. Understanding how gravity and pressure reshape the behavior of fluids, gases and composite materials could determine whether orbital fabrication remains a promising experiment or becomes a practical industrial capability. By examining the production of carbon-fiber-reinforced structures under space-relevant conditions, Strecker, Rieger, Tabelander and their colleagues are helping identify the hidden variables that will decide how safely and efficiently humanity can build beyond Earth.

Subject of Research: Effects of reduced gravity and reduced atmospheric pressure on the in-space manufacturing of carbon-fiber-reinforced structures

Article Title: Effects of reduced gravity and reduced atmospheric pressure on in-space manufacturing of carbon-fiber-reinforced structures

Article References: Strecker, R., Rieger, T., Tabelander, A. et al. Effects of reduced gravity and reduced atmospheric pressure on in-space manufacturing of carbon-fiber-reinforced structures. npj Adv. Manuf. 3, 26 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44334-026-00104-w

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44334-026-00104-w

Keywords: in-space manufacturing, carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers, reduced gravity, reduced atmospheric pressure, composite materials, resin flow, void formation, space technology

SpaceX and Tesla on Thursday formally unveiled plans for the initial phase of their Terafab project. The first stage of the plan — which is expected to use Intel's 14A process technology — is expected to require $16.8 billion in investment, while the completed campus is planned to encompass more than 100 million square feet of manufacturing space. The massive semiconductor manufacturing complex will be built in Grimes County, Texas, at a location that belongs to SpaceX.

According to SpaceX and Tesla, their combined demand for semiconductors is projected to exceed 1 terawatt (TW) of compute per year, which significantly exceeds today's global supply. In fact, SpaceX, Tesla, and xAI already consume a significant portion of contract chipmaking services available today, and can potentially justify building a dedicated fab that will exclusively serve Elon Musk's companies. In particular, Terafab is envisioned to exclusively produce AI inference processors for Tesla Optimus humanoid robots and Cybercab autonomous vehicles, as well as 'high-power' processors intended for SpaceX's space-based data centers. Meanwhile, SpaceX and Tesla have not disclosed when their combined demand for compute per year will hit the 1 TW benchmark.

Unlike a conventional semiconductor fab, Terafab is envisioned as a vertically integrated manufacturing campus where advanced logic devices, memory chips, packaging, and testing operations are housed together. Normally, logic and memory are produced at different fabs using different process technologies, whereas packaging and testing services are performed at different facilities. However, the companies believe that consolidating logic, memory, packaging, and testing in one location will not only shorten the production cycle but will also shorten time-to-yield by enabling faster iterative improvements.

Given the description and the goal of the project, this will be a massive facility. Yet, SpaceX and Tesla have said little about its capabilities; The only thing they have disclosed is that the current facility in Grimes County will feature '100 million square feet of manufacturing space.' The 100 million square feet (9.3 million square meters) figure immediately stands out because it is far beyond anything ever announced for a semiconductor manufacturing facility. For example, the total area of Samsung's Pyeongtaek campus is approximately 2.89 million square meters, or 31.1 million square feet. A single Samsung fab occupies about 120,000 square meters, or 1.29 million square feet. However, the key wording is important: '100 million square feet of manufacturing space' does not mean 100 million square feet of cleanroom space.

Based on an image published by SpaceX, the Terafab facility will occupy four massive buildings. It is unclear whether these buildings will be four phases of the project (i.e., logic, memory, and packaging will be made under one roof) or will serve different purposes (i.e., one building makes logic, another produces memory, yet another does testing and packaging). In any case, when fully built, Terafab will be a massive semiconductor production campus that will require significantly more than $16.8 billion.

The announcement claims that the Terafab facility will employ at least 3,000 people, and that between 60% and 80% of them will be Grimes and nearby Brazos County residents.

Terafab is expected to use water from Gibbons Creek Reservoir instead of local groundwater and feature on-site wastewater treatment as well as water recycling and conservation measures.

The announcement follows Tesla's groundbreaking earlier this year on a research semiconductor facility at the North Campus of Tesla's Giga Texas campus, which the companies describe as a precursor to Terafab.

The administration will impose a minimum import price for polysilicon, a key component for semiconductors and solar panels, as well as tariffs for products made with the material.

© Christian Monterrosa for The New York Times

A die-off of seabirds has some experts thinking an El Niño weather pattern is to blame, a look at data centers and pollution, and more climate news.

© American Bird Conservancy

The mood was celebratory at the ribbon-cutting for Muon Space’s San Jose, California, manufacturing facility in June. State, local, United States Space Force and Pentagon representatives lauded the startup and, […]

The post Satellite manufacturing thrives in California despite cost and regulatory pressures appeared first on SpaceNews.

Researchers have demonstrated an unusual new form of 3D printing capable of building entirely new structures directly onto—and even around—existing objects in just seconds. In a series of experiments, the technique printed microscopic fluid channels around embedded glass spheres, fabricated precision gears onto polished steel rods, and even built a miniature lens directly onto the surface of a working LED.

The breakthrough, described in a paper published in Nature Communications, relies on an advanced form of tomographic volumetric additive manufacturing (TVAM) that allows researchers to “overprint” new structures onto components made from a wide range of materials, including metal, glass, and preassembled microfluidic components. Instead of constructing objects layer by layer like conventional 3D printers, the system projects precisely calculated light patterns into a rotating vat of photosensitive resin, causing an entire three-dimensional object to solidify almost simultaneously within seconds.

The advancement could represent a major step toward making volumetric 3D printing practical in real-world manufacturing environments, where new components often must be integrated with parts that already exist.

It additionally highlights the growing sophistication of computational techniques that can accurately model how light behaves as it passes through materials that absorb, scatter, refract, or reflect light.

“Tomographic Volumetric Additive Manufacturing (TVAM) is a light-based 3D printing technique capable of producing centimeter-scale objects within seconds,” researchers write. “This work demonstrates a broad range of overprinting scenarios, where new structures are directly printed onto or around pre-existing components made from different materials.”

Unlike conventional stereolithography or fused-filament printers that gradually build an object from one direction, tomographic volumetric printing projects hundreds of two-dimensional light patterns into a rotating container filled with liquid resin.

As the resin accumulates enough light energy, the desired three-dimensional structure appears almost simultaneously throughout the volume rather than emerging layer by layer. The approach can produce centimeter-scale objects in mere seconds.

However, until now, one of the technology’s greatest challenges has been accurately calculating how light travels through complicated environments.

Existing objects inside the resin can block, scatter, or bend incoming light, degrading print quality. Conventional models often assume these objects are either completely transparent or completely opaque. This is an oversimplification that breaks down in realistic manufacturing scenarios.

To overcome those limitations, the team developed an upgraded computational framework called Dr.TVAM. Built upon physically based ray tracing, the software models how light propagates through materials with different optical properties while simultaneously optimizing the projected light patterns needed to create the desired object.

Because the framework accounts for reflection, refraction, scattering, absorption, and arbitrary container shapes, it can successfully print structures around components that previously would have interfered with the process.

One of the study’s most compelling demonstrations involved manufacturing microfluidic channels directly inside sealed, preassembled square chambers. Microfluidic devices contain microscopic channels that transport tiny volumes of liquids and are widely used in biomedical research, diagnostics, and organ-on-a-chip systems.

Instead of fabricating the channels separately and assembling the device afterward—a process that can introduce contamination or leaks—the researchers successfully printed perfusable channels directly inside an already assembled chamber while accounting for inlet and outlet structures that would otherwise obstruct the light.

They demonstrated straight channels, branching networks, and spiral geometries capable of carrying fluid after fabrication. Supplementary demonstrations showed colored dye successfully flowing through the finished structures.

The researchers then pushed the concept even further by creating what they describe as context-aware printing. In this experiment, they embedded two tiny glass spheres inside a hydrogel-filled chamber, rapidly determined each sphere’s three-dimensional position using two camera images, and generated customized print patterns in less than a minute.

Those optimized projections produced hollow channels connecting each sphere to inlet and outlet ports while simultaneously printing protective cavities around the spheres themselves. The complete workflow—from detecting the embedded objects to generating printing instructions and fabricating the final structure—required less than three minutes.

That ability could eventually enable highly customized biomedical manufacturing, where printers automatically adapt to the precise location of living tissues, organoids, or other biological materials rather than requiring perfect positioning beforehand.

Another experiment highlighted why precisely modeling light matters.

Previous demonstrations of volumetric overprinting treated metal components as though they completely absorbed incoming light. In reality, polished metal reflects and scatters significant amounts of light, creating distortions that reduce print quality.

Researchers tested both assumptions by printing a gear directly onto a polished steel rod. When the software ignored scattered light, the gear’s fine holes became over-polymerized and poorly defined.

After including realistic scattering behavior into the optical model, however, the resulting gear preserved those elaborate features far more accurately, increasing simulated print fidelity substantially. The improvement was confirmed experimentally.

Researchers even went as far as demonstrating that the process could print directly onto an electronic component.

Using an LED-based volumetric printing system, the researchers fabricated both a miniature lens and a small cross-shaped symbol directly onto the surface of a red LED. When illuminated, the printed lens projected the symbol onto a screen, successfully transforming the LED into a tiny optical projector without requiring additional assembly. The experiment showcased how optical elements themselves could potentially be integrated directly onto existing electronic hardware during manufacturing.

Beyond the individual demonstrations, the work additionally underscores an important trend in additive manufacturing: increasingly sophisticated software is becoming just as important as advances in hardware.

Instead of relying on simplified mathematical approximations, the new framework performs physically based optical simulations capable of modeling arbitrary geometries along with material properties.

The software has been released as open source, along with configuration files and experimental data, allowing other researchers to reproduce and expand upon the 3D printing work.

Although the current demonstrations remain laboratory-scale, the possible implications could extend well beyond experimental 3D printing. Biomedical researchers could eventually fabricate sterile microfluidic systems without multi-step assembly. Optical engineers may integrate lenses directly onto light sources. Manufacturers could add custom features to finished components without redesigning entire production processes.

Researchers also note that future improvements could further increase realism through incorporating additional physical effects, including changes in refractive index during polymerization and the diffusion of chemical inhibitors during printing. Those refinements could expand the technology’s accuracy and enable even more complex manufacturing scenarios.

“In summary, Dr.TVAM, our computational framework, has shown to be capable of modeling different optical situations for TVAM,” researchers write. “We believe this significantly expands the application space for TVAM, enabling the creation of complex, functionalized, and multi-component devices from applications in mechanics, optics, or biofabrication.”

Study: Wechsler F, et al. “Overprinting with tomographic volumetric additive manufacturing.” Nature Communications (2026).

Tim McMillan is a retired law enforcement executive, investigative reporter and co-founder of The Debrief. His writing typically focuses on defense, national security, the Intelligence Community and topics related to psychology. You can follow Tim on Twitter: @LtTimMcMillan.  Tim can be reached by email: tim@thedebrief.org or through encrypted email: LtTimMcMillan@protonmail.com