Blue Origin announced a major expansion of its Florida launch operations on Friday, a plan aimed at eventually supporting as many as 150 New Glenn flights a year. Ars Technica reports that the company will add two launch pads beyond the two already under construction at Cape Canaveral, bringing the planned network to four.
The buildout also includes a factory capable of producing up to 150 upper stages each year for a larger New Glenn variant. Blue Origin plans to procure two more landing ships in addition to its current ship, Jacklyn, and build a customer-integration facility with the US Space Force. That facility is expected to have four payload bays so multiple missions can be processed at once.
Blue Origin operations chief Ian Richardson said the infrastructure is designed to support multiple flights per week by the end of the decade. The facilities and vehicles are still being developed, so those figures describe the capacity the company is targeting rather than what it can launch today.
A much larger Florida footprint
Blue Origin says it has invested about $3 billion in Florida facilities and infrastructure so far. The company reports that it now employs more than 5,000 people in the state, works with 500 Florida suppliers and operates across more than 20 sites in Brevard and Orange counties.
