๐จ SpaceX is standing up a turbine-blade foundry in Bastrop
โข The Information: SpaceX is laying groundwork for a plant that casts blades and vanes for large gas turbines
โข Site is Bastrop, Texas, next to existing SpaceX manufacturing
โข Same shop is meant to feed data-center turbines and Raptor turbopump castings
โข Morgan Stanley: same alloys, furnaces and skilled workers for both lines
โข Elon: in-house blades and vanes can pull gas turbines online by up to 18 months
โข Casting jobs for that site have been listed since April
I see this as one building doing two jobs.
- Raptor already needs that metal.
- Data centers now need the same class of part and the outside foundries are booked into 2030.
They still have to qualify the bigger blades. A job listing is not first metal.
If Bastrop actually pours both, the 18-month claim stops being a slide and becomes a date.
SpaceX already makes turbine blades. For Merlin.
High heat, high RPM, cracks that NASA would not accept on a crew flight. They spent years on that and changed the part.
The next job is bigger blades for gas turbines that feed data centers.
Those parts sit in a few foundries with years of backlog. Elon wants the casting inside SpaceX to cut that wait by as much as 18 months.
Rocket blades exist.
Power-plant blades do not, not yet.