It's not quite a chip factory in orbit yet, but that's the end goal of yet another project to build processors in space. Washington D.C.–based startup Besxar just announced that it has inked a 12-launch deal with SpaceX to test an idea I would have discarded as science-fiction nonsense before: manufacturing semiconductors in the hard vacuum of space.
The company's prototype manufacturing pods, called "Fabships," will hitch rides on the boosters of Falcon 9 rockets starting late this year. Each booster will carry two microwave-sized units that remain attached during flight, spend a few minutes exposed to near-space vacuum, and then return to Earth with the booster less than ten minutes later. It's the first reusable payload program that SpaceX has signed, and it marks the opening salvo in Besxar's plan to build what it calls the world's first orbital semiconductor foundry.
