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SpaceX’s Elon Musk teases in-house R&D for BFR refueling on Mars
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter to reaffirm SpaceX’s commitment to developing their own technology for refueling BFR beyond Earth, noting that the high-efficiency hardware would be “critical for propellant production at Mars Base Alpha.”
Known as in-situ resource utilization (ISRU), Musk briefly commented on SpaceX’s in-house work on the tech in an October 2017 Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), noting that “Design is pretty far along…it’s a key part of the whole system.” His most recent tweet on June 10 reiterated ISRU’s centrality to any successful (read: sustainable) colonization of Mars, and the CEO further confirmed what was already all but guaranteed, describing a chemical reaction known as the Sabatier process.
“SpaceX is already developing high-efficiency CO2 capture with H2O to form liquid CH4 (methane) & O2.” – Elon Musk, June 2018
At the most basic level, by combining heated, high-pressure carbon dioxide and hydrogen (easily derived from Mars’ CO2-rich atmosphere and wealth of water ice) and a bed of nickel or aluminum oxide, the Sabatier process can produce methane and water. Water can be easily decomposed into hydrogen and oxygen or used for drinking, cooking, and plumbing, among an infinite number of other uses. Akin to a more advanced version of what is already successfully utilized aboard the International Space Station, efficient Sabatier reactors can also be used to partially recycle wastewater and carbon dioxide (produced by humans breathing) to recover a significant fraction of pure water and methane.
In the case of SpaceX’s BFR rocket and spaceship, its propellant of choice will be liquid oxygen and methane (known as methalox) partly because of how comparatively easy it is to handle methane and to produce it on Mars, while simultaneously being a significant enabler of efficient long-term crewed spaceflight (i.e. the months-long deep space journeys to and from Mars). Less consumable mass required to keep passengers alive and happy directly translates into more payload to the surface of Mars, lowering the overall cost per kilogram delivered and thus the cost per ticket!
- The BFR spaceship pictured landing on Mars. (SpaceX)
- A US astronaut completes installation of the ISS’s upgraded Sabatier reactor, which helps to partially close the loop on water consumables. (NASA, 2011)
After landing on Mars, Sabatier reactors would be used to gradually refuel each Big F. Spaceship. Of course, the Sabatier process follows the laws of thermodynamics and thus requires a power source to heat the inputs, as well as cool the outputted methane and oxygen into fuel-grade cryo-cooled liquids. At least until SpaceX chooses to jump into the ring with the US nuclear (fissile) material regulation apparatus and develop or launch nuclear reactors, the most reliable power source for interplanetary colonization, that power will have to be supplied by acres upon acres of solar panels optimized to be as light, dense, and efficient as possible. If anything, the dust storm currently threatening the livelihood of Mars rover Opportunity should serve as evidence that solar power on Mars is at best a relatively cheap and simple stopgap for better power sources, especially for any long-term human presence on the Red Planet.
Optimally, BFS’ own internal solar array would (and likely will, at least at first) double as a source of power both in space and on the surface of Mars, neatly removing the need to waste precious cargo space on duplicate hardware. Even better, perhaps there is a chance that SpaceX’s materials scientists, engineers, and chemists can find ways to significantly optimize the Sabatier reaction for their specific needs, potentially lowering the energy required to get the desired end-product. It’s sort of a theme with interplanetary colonization, butttt… lower energy requirements translate to fewer solar panels needed to produce a given quantity of propellant in a set period of time, meaning that more payload can thus be dedicated to more important cargo like food, habitats, ISRU hardware, mining and tunneling machinery, and humans.
With any luck, followers of SpaceX may get an update on the company’s BFR plans later this year, likely just before or immediately after the first prototype spaceship is shipped to Texas for acceptance testing and a Grasshopper-style program of suborbital hops.
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SpaceX hid behind another name in the Arizona desert, and now it’s going big
SpaceX puts a $50 billion price on its Arizona supercompute campus ahead of December’s hearing.
SpaceX has put a price tag on the supercomputer campus it wants to build in the southern Arizona desert. In a statement Thursday, the company said it is pursuing a roughly $50 billion supercompute campus in Cochise County, about 80 miles east of Tucson. Together with a separate facility planned at Starbase, Texas, the two projects add up to more than $74 billion in planned investment.
The Arizona figure had not been disclosed before. SpaceX’s involvement only became public on November 4, when company representatives hosted a packed town hall at Cochise Elementary School for an application filed under the name Tombstone Resources LLC. A SpaceX representative told residents the filing used another name because putting SpaceX on it “draws attention” from outside the county, local station KVOA reported.
The application describes a 747-acre site near the Willcox Playa with up to nine buildings of about 493,000 square feet each. SpaceX plans to bring the campus online in four phases of roughly 1.5 GW, reaching 6 GW at full build, backed by a 24 GWh battery system and about $3.6 billion in grid upgrades. At that size, it would draw about 2.5 times more power than every data center in Maricopa County combined, according to an Arizona Republic analysis.
SpaceX says the project will create about 5,500 construction jobs and 1,000 permanent jobs, and that it could cut electricity bills for members of the local cooperatives by up to 20 percent. The campus would use dry cooling with no industrial groundwater use. Its application estimates ongoing water needs of 7 to 10 acre-feet a year, roughly what 20 to 30 homes consume.
Power is the bigger question. The site sits next to the Apache Generating Station, a coal and natural gas plant with about 1 GW of capacity that had been slated to retire by 2028. SpaceX told residents its investment could expand the station to more than 6 GW.
Local opposition is organized. A petition asking the county to deny the permit has gathered about 2,400 signatures, and the nearby playa is a landing spot for federally protected sandhill cranes, which SpaceX says its design accounts for. The Cochise County Planning and Zoning Commission will hold a public hearing on December 9 in Bisbee, with written comments due November 27. If approved, construction could start in March 2027.
The Texas project faces a vote the same day. The Starbase City Commission will consider a property tax abatement for SpaceX’s $24 billion gas plant and supercompute facility at its own December 9 hearing, as Teslarati reported. SpaceX said Thursday the Starbase site has already generated more than 3,000 construction jobs, and it committed $220 million to Brownsville’s water and wastewater systems, $40 million of which has been paid.
Both campuses would expand a footprint still centered on the Memphis area, where SpaceX’s Colossus data centers run largely on gas turbines and the company won a permit for a power plant in Southaven, Mississippi earlier this year. SpaceX ended the third quarter with 1.7 GW of nameplate compute. The Arizona campus alone, at full build, would be more than three times that size.
Elon Musk
Nvidia’s board meets on Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk already has an answer
Elon Musk says it would be an honor to hire Jensen Huang amid Nvidia turmoil.
Elon Musk says he would welcome Jensen Huang at one of his companies if Nvidia’s board decides to push out its longtime chief executive.
On Wednesday evening, the financial account ZeroHedge posted “Elon please hire Jensen” on X. Musk replied roughly two hours later: “That would be an honor.” Neither Huang nor Nvidia had responded publicly as of Wednesday night.
Musk’s reply came as Nvidia’s board met to decide Huang’s future. The Wall Street Journal reported that directors were preparing to oust him following reports of two extramarital relationships. One involves Alice Huang, a Singapore-based businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence officials reportedly believe was working for China’s Ministry of State Security. The New York Times separately reported a relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care. Huang acknowledged being unfaithful in a memo to employees on Sunday but gave no details.
@zerohedge That would be an honor
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 12, 2026
Under Nvidia’s bylaws, a majority of its 11 directors can remove the CEO with or without cause. Bloomberg reported that the board has been working with an outside firm on possible replacements and may name an interim chief, with CFO Colette Kress seen as the likely pick. Nvidia shares fell more than 8 percent in extended trading, according to CNBC, and the company is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on November 17.
Musk has more riding on Nvidia’s leadership than most tech executives. In August, he told investors on SpaceX’s first earnings call as a public company that it would build its AI infrastructure exclusively on Nvidia hardware, calling Vera Rubin “the best architecture.” SpaceX is also working with Nvidia on the compute payload for Starmind, its planned orbital AI constellation. In October, SpaceX said it had a binding commitment for a roughly $40 billion lease of Vera Rubin GPUs and related equipment, with the leases expected to begin in the first half of 2027.
The scale of that dependence is already enormous. On its Q3 call, SpaceX said it was bringing roughly 200,000 to 220,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs online each month and expects 2.5 to 3 GW of nameplate compute by the end of the year. That buildout is now reaching new sites like the proposed $24 billion power plant and supercomputer campus at Starbase.
The relationship between the two executives also goes back nearly a decade. Huang has often told the story of personally delivering Nvidia’s first DGX-1 AI supercomputer to Musk in 2016, when no other customer wanted one. “Nobody wanted to be part of it, except for Elon,” Huang said on the Joe Rogan Experience last December.
Musk did not say what role Huang might fill, and his reply stops short of a formal offer. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and still owns about 3.6 percent of its stock, so any move to a Musk company would depend on whether, and how, he leaves the chipmaker he has run for more than three decades.
News
Starlink Mini 2 arrives with one feature for true off-grid connectivity
SpaceX officially launched the Starlink Mini 2 on November 10, delivering the first portable Starlink terminal designed around independent power.
Invitation-only preorders for select U.S. customers are priced at $999 plus tax, a figure that includes a full year of Roam Unlimited service valued at roughly $2,100. A refundable $100 deposit reserves the kit, with the balance due at shipment, expected to begin in mid-December. Broader availability is listed as coming soon.
Starlink just unveiled Mini 2, its next-gen portable dish.
Quick-swap battery, up to 4.5 hrs per charge
USB-C power
Built-in Wi-Fi
Online in about 60 secondsPreorders are open now. https://t.co/QawqgbswrQ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 10, 2026
The headline feature is the quick-swap 71 Wh battery. Clipped to the rear of the dish without tools, it delivers up to 4.5 hours of connectivity on a single charge.
The 490-gram pack includes its own USB-C port and LED indicators, so users can charge a spare separately and swap it in seconds while staying online. Starlink notes that the terminal can continue operating while the battery charges or run directly from a 60 W USB-C source. The retail box includes one battery, a 60 W USB-C charger, and a 3-meter cable.
Beyond power, the Mini 2 is thinner at 23.1 mm (versus 38.5 mm on the original Mini) while measuring 263 × 314 mm. With the battery and kickstand attached it weighs 1.6 kg.
Built-in Wi-Fi 6 expands coverage to up to 1,800 square feet, an IP67 rating protects against dust and water, and a standard 1/4-20 tripod thread plus physical power button round out the design. Field of view remains 110 degrees, and the unit retains support for mobile use.
For travelers, campers, and remote workers, the swappable battery removes the longstanding requirement for an external power bank or vehicle outlet that defined the first Mini. Spare packs sold separately further extend runtime, turning the compact terminal into a more self-contained solution.
While the bundled $999 invitation price sits well above the original Mini’s current $149 starting point, the included year of service and genuine untethered operation mark a clear step forward in portable satellite internet.


