Blue Origin EXPANDS FOOTPRINT on the Space Coast

June 13, 2019 — Blue Origin is investing more than a billion dollars into the region to transform infrastructure into gateways for its upcoming New Glenn rocket, which will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station no earlier than 2021. Here on the Space Coast of Florida, Blue Origin will build, launch and (after landing in the Atlantic) refurbish rockets for reuse. Construction workers finished its New Glenn factory at Kennedy Space Center’s Exploration Park in late 2017, but that’s just the first phase.

Blue Origin founder, Jeff Bezos (who launched Amazon in 1994), believes the future will see industry and other Earth-based happenings move beyond the ground and into orbit, the moon and possibly even other planets. To build out that infrastructure to space with New Glenn, Blue has embarked on a series of initiatives here:

• The Blue Origin campus will nearly double in size as land to the south is cleared for the second phase. The factory will function as launch control center for New Glenn missions.
• 10 miles away, up to 600 people have already been hired to reconstruct Launch Complex 36, a pad formerly used for Atlas-Centaur rockets that Blue Origin now leases from the Air Force.

The investments by Blue Origin are significant on the Space Coast/Brevard County, Florida now the epicenter for Blue Origin’s efforts to bring hundreds of employees and potentially thousands of visitors during its launches. Out of Blue Origin’s 2,000 total employees nationwide, not counting construction employment associated with expansion, the company in this early phase has about 250 people employed locally.

Source: Florida Today