Completion Expected In 2017

Commercial space company Blue Origin has broken ground on a rocket manufacturing facility on Merritt Island near Cape Canaveral, FL.

Company CEO Jeff Bezos announced the groundbreaking in an email distributed to the media. "We broke ground on our orbital vehicle manufacturing site in Florida," Bezos wrote.

"The 750,000 square foot rocket factory is custom-built from the ground up to accommodate manufacturing, processing, integration and testing. Among other things, the facility hosts large scale friction stir welding and automated composite processing equipment. All of the vehicle will be manufactured in this facility except for the engines. Initial BE-4 engine production will occur at our Kent facility while we conduct a site selection process later this year for a larger engine production facility to accommodate higher production rates."

Bezos included the images posted here of the groundbreaking and artists renderings of what the vehicle manufacturing facility will look like in December 2017 when it’s complete.

"It’s exciting to see the bulldozers in action--we’re clearing the way for the production of a reusable fleet of orbital vehicles that we will launch and land, again and again," he said.

(Images provided with Bezos' email)

FMI: www.blueorigin.com