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IT Home reported on November 11 that SpaceX, owned by the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, announced today (November 11) that it had signed a major supply contract with German solar cell equipment manufacturer SINGULUS. SpaceX will introduce a complete production line for heterojunction (HJT) solar cells to accelerate the manufacture of Starmind satellites.
IT Home note: HJT stands for Heterojunction Technology, a power generation technology that mainly combines crystalline silicon with ultrathin amorphous silicon films to minimize electrical losses after solar cells receive sunlight and conduct the resulting current more efficiently.
“Hetero” refers to semiconductor materials with different structures. In a typical HJT cell, a piece of N-type crystalline silicon sits in the middle, with extremely thin amorphous silicon layers on both sides, followed by transparent conductive films and metal electrodes on the outside. Although crystalline silicon and amorphous silicon both contain silicon, their atoms are arranged differently, allowing them to form a “heterojunction.”
Starmind, meanwhile, is a space-based artificial intelligence computing satellite project being developed by SpaceX. Powered by solar energy, the satellites run computing tasks in space and send the results back to Earth through laser links and the Starlink network. Its first publicly disclosed design is called AI1.
According to an announcement SINGULUS issued yesterday, this partnership is primarily about equipment and processes for manufacturing solar cells, rather than purchasing finished cells. Building on technologies already deployed at scale, SINGULUS will develop high-performance solar cells and supporting production equipment, using processes including wet chemical treatment, vacuum coating and heat treatment in production. The first production line is scheduled for delivery in the first half of 2027, and the two parties also plan to add multiple lines.
Mike Nicolls, senior vice president of SpaceX’s Starlink business, said the partnership would provide a manufacturing path for the solar cells needed to produce Starmind satellites at the Texas factory. Drawing on both parties’ process expertise and long-term investment, it would also establish a sustainable supply solution for expanding production. The two parties said that, as satellite manufacturing accelerates, related production will gradually expand to support a production equipment scale exceeding 100 gigawatts (GW).
IT Home note: 100 gigawatts equals 100 million kilowatts. It refers to the production scale associated with solar cell manufacturing equipment, not a “power station” that SpaceX is building in space. In terms of power capacity alone, it is roughly equivalent to the combined installed capacity of 4.4 Three Gorges power stations (the Three Gorges Dam has a total installed capacity of 22.5 million kilowatts).