Besxar Builds Orbital Chip Factory on SpaceX Rockets — SkimNews
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- Besxar launched two 'fabships' on a July Starlink mission aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to test semiconductor material production in orbit, with plans to scale across a dozen flights
- Ashley Pilipiszyn, founder of Besxar and former OpenAI staffer, raised nearly $14 million including a $9 million seed round led by Dauntless Ventures and Overture VC to fund the orbital chip-making project
- Besxar's fabships successfully protected wafer samples from contamination during launch, returning the cleanest wafers compared to terrestrial counterparts despite a flight data system malfunction in one unit
- SpaceX Falcon 9 boosters, which flew over 100 times this year, are being used as reusable platforms for Besxar’s experiments due to their frequent round-trips to orbit and back
- Besxar aims to incrementally advance its in-orbit fabrication process—starting with heating wafers, then depositing materials—before eventually scaling to Starship-based operations
Why it matters: By using existing rocket flights instead of building costly ground-based clean rooms, Besxar reduces upfront infrastructure barriers to advanced chipmaking. The approach could shift how semiconductor capacity is developed, especially if orbital manufacturing proves scalable and cheaper than fighting Earth’s physics.
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