Jeff Bezos to launch ‘big rockets’ at Cape Canaveral, compete with SpaceX

Blue Origin will take over Complex 36, where historic missions like Mariner (the first spacecraft to travel to Mars) and Pioneer 10 (the first spacecraft to reach the asteroid belt) launched from.

Speaking at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Bezos outlined a new chapter for Blue Origin, the private aerospace company he founded more than a decade ago.

Florida Governor Rick Scott said the company will invest more than $200 million in building its new factory and base of operations in the state, creating more than 330 jobs.

The Amazon.com Inc. chief executive officer is among the entrepreneurs who made fortunes in other businesses and are now turning to space travel.

Blue Origin launched a successful test flight of New Shepard last April. “The state provides the ideal business climate for innovative companies like Blue Origin to come to Florida and succeed, and we look forward to watching them push this industry to places it has yet to go”. “We’re not just going to launch here, we’re building here”, Bezos said at a press conference at Cape Canaveral today. “We’ll be launching from here later this decade”.

Blue Origin’s approach is deliberately incremental.

“Residents of the Space Coast have enjoyed front-row seats to the future for almost 60 years”, Bezos wrote in a statement on Blue Origin’s website. [Watch Blue Origin Announce Its Florida Launch Plans]. Our team’s passion for pioneering is the ideal fit for a community dedicated to forging new frontiers.

Though Bezos revealed few details about Blue Origin’s flight plans, he said there would be a “21st century production facility where we will focus on manufacturing a reusable fleet of orbital launchers”. “[That’s] too long. We can’t wait to fix that”. Keeping vehicle assembly close to the launch pad will make transportation of the “really big rockets” easier, Bezos said. He also announced plans to build a new orbital rocket at the facility, which he noted will use the company’s upcoming BE-4 engine.

The BE-4 engine will power the first flight of San Diego-based United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, Bezos said.