Blue Origin is going all in on the New Glenn rocket

Blue Origin announced a major expansion of its already considerable Florida launch facilities on Friday morning with the intent of eventually flying 150 rockets a year from there.

The company said it would add two additional launch pads for the New Glenn rocket, in addition to two already under construction at Cape Canaveral. The company is also investing heavily in a new manufacturing facility that will produce up to 150 upper stages for a larger variant of the New Glenn rocket.

Additionally, the company plans to procure two additional landing ships to catch and return the first stage of the New Glenn rocket (it currently has one, named Jacklyn). Finally, Blue Origin said it would add a new customer integration facility, built in conjunction with the US Space Force, that will feature four payload bays to process multiple missions at the same time.

“These investments are centered on one goal: building the capacity to support more missions, more reliably, and more efficiently,” wrote Ian Richardson, senior vice president of operations at Blue Origin, in an update on the company’s website this morning. “As we look ahead, this infrastructure is designed to support multiple flights per week by the end of the decade.

$3 billion and counting

To date, Blue Origin has invested about $3 billion in facilities and infrastructure in Florida, largely to support the construction and launch of the heavy-lift New Glenn rocket. The company now has more than 5,000 employees working in Florida and 500 suppliers in the state.

“Our manufacturing and operations footprint has more than doubled in the last couple of years, now spanning more than 20 sites across Brevard and Orange Counties,” Richardson wrote. “Blue Origin is the only company—and the largest employer—to manufacture, launch, and refurbish rockets on the Space Coast.”

That would seem to be a reference to superseding the 800-pound gorilla on the Florida Space Coast, SpaceX, which has launched hundreds of rockets into orbit over the years from Florida. Blue Origin has launched to orbit twice.