{"id":18112,"date":"2019-03-22T23:13:32","date_gmt":"2019-03-22T15:13:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-has-big-plans-to-expand-new-glenn-rocket-factory-in-florida\/"},"modified":"2019-03-22T23:13:32","modified_gmt":"2019-03-22T15:13:32","slug":"jeff-bezos-blue-origin-has-big-plans-to-expand-new-glenn-rocket-factory-in-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-has-big-plans-to-expand-new-glenn-rocket-factory-in-florida\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin has big plans to expand New Glenn rocket factory in Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_396653\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-396653\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-396653 size-full-width\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/20180207_Blue_Origin_09-630x354.jpg\" alt=\"Blue Origin Florida factory\" width=\"630\" height=\"354\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/20180207_Blue_Origin_09-630x354.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/20180207_Blue_Origin_09-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/20180207_Blue_Origin_09-1260x709.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/20180207_Blue_Origin_09.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-396653\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Blue Origin space venture aims to add to the massive facility it\u2019s already built near Cape Canaveral in Florida. (GeekWire Photo \/ Kevin Lisota)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture has filed plans for expanding its Florida rocket manufacturing facility onto a vacant 90-acre plot of land next door, Florida Today reports.<\/p>\n<p>The newspaper reported today that the plans for a \u201cSouth Campus\u201d on Space Commerce Way, near NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center, are laid out in documents filed with the St. Johns River Water Management District. The land would be used to establish \u201cprograms complimentary to those constructed on the adjacent North Campus,\u201d the documents say.<\/p>\n<p>Construction on the new site is due to begin in July, with the final building phase to be wrapped up a year from now. The buildings would provide space for manufacturing and provisioning of commercial launch vehicles, Florida Today reported. The site would include a warehouse that could be expanded later.<\/p>\n<p>In response to GeekWire\u2019s inquiry, Blue Origin said it had nothing to add to the Florida Today report.<\/p>\n<p>Blue Origin has erected a 750,000-square-foot factory on the 126-acre North Campus site for building orbital-class New Glenn rockets. \u201cWe\u2019re making parts for the first booster already down there,\u201d Brett Alexander, Blue Origin\u2019s vice president of sales and strategy, said this week at the American Astronautical Society\u2019s Goddard Memorial Symposium in Maryland,<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"New Glenn: The Road to Space\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LSftIaLhQzE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The first New Glenn launch from Cape Canaveral\u2019s Launch Complex 36 is currently scheduled for 2021.<\/p>\n<p>The company builds its suborbital New Shepard rockets, as well as its BE-3 and BE-4 engines, at its headquarters facility in Kent, Wash. BE-4 engine production is expected to shift to a new 200,000-square-foot factory in Huntsville, Ala., in preparation for New Glenn\u2019s maiden launch.<\/p>\n<p>Florida has been attracting an increasing level of interest as a base for commercial rocket production as well as for launches. Relativity Space and Firefly Aerospace recently struck deals for facilities in Florida, and this week SpaceX founder Elon Musk said his company\u2019s next-generation Starship and Super Heavy booster would be built in Florida as well as in Texas.<\/p>\n<p>A prototype for Starship, known as the Starship Hopper, has been going through ground testing at a SpaceX launch site near Brownsville in South Texas and is expected to begin short-hop test flights as early as next week.<\/p>\n<p><strong>In other Blue Origin news:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Space News quoted Blue Origin\u2019s Brett Alexander as saying that the company has looked at ways to repurpose the New Glenn\u2019s second stage in orbit, perhaps as a habitation or storage facility. Alexander said at the Goddard Memorial Symposium that the ideas were explored in a study conducted for NASA on commercialization of space operations in low Earth orbit. He said \u201cwe don\u2019t have actual plans at this moment\u201d to follow through on the ideas.<\/li>\n<li>Alexander said Bezos has invested \u201cnorth of $2.5 billion\u201d to develop the New Glenn booster. About a billion dollars of that amount has been spent on the Florida manufacturing and launch facilities, he said, \u201cin addition to what we\u2019re doing with engine development and the manufacturing and design up in Kent.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The West Texas test program for Blue Origin\u2019s suborbital New Shepard spaceship is on track to start carrying people in the \u201cthird or fourth quarter of this year,\u201d Alexander said. (Check out the archived video starting at 10:42.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Blue Origin space venture aims to add to the massive facility it\u2019s already built near Cape Canaveral in Florida. (GeekWire Photo \/ Kevin Lisota) Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture has filed plans for expanding its Florida rocket manufacturing facility onto a vacant 90-acre plot of land next door, Florida Today reports. 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