KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida – Blue Origin broke ground on its 750,000-square-foot rocket factory at Exploration Park just south of Kennedy Space Center in Florida, CEO Jeff Bezos announced on Tuesday.
The site will eventually serve as launch, manufacturing and support facilities for Blue Origin’s Orbital Launch Vehicle (OLV) program that will launch from Space Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station later this decade.
In partnership with United Launch Alliance, Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine is slated to replace the Russian-made RD-180 engine by 2019.
Dubbed by Bezos as “a 21st century production facility where we’ll focus on manufacturing our reusable fleet of orbital launchers and readying them for flight again and again,” the project will create 330 new jobs and a capital investment of $200 million on Florida’s Space Coast over the next five years.
Photo credits: Blue Origin
