Blue Origin plans $330 million Florida expansion to boost New Glenn launches
Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin says the $330 million Rocket Park expansion will let it build up to 150 New Glenn upper stages a year and target multiple flights per week by the end of the decade.
At a glance
- Blue Origin plans a $330 million expansion of its Cape Canaveral, Florida, campus, adding two New Glenn launch and landing pads.
- The project, due for completion in summer 2027, aims to support multiple New Glenn flights per week by the end of the decade.
- Blue Origin is recovering from a May launchpad explosion and aims to return New Glenn to flight by the end of 2026.
Blue Origin, the space company founded by Jeff Bezos, said on Friday it will spend $330 million to expand its Rocket Park campus in Cape Canaveral, Florida, adding two launch and landing pads for its New Glenn rocket.
The company said the expansion, expected to be complete in the summer of 2027, will allow it to produce up to 150 upper stages of New Glenn annually. New Glenn is a heavy-lift, partially reusable rocket.
Targeting weekly flights by the end of the decade
"These investments are centered on one goal: building the capacity to support more missions, more reliably, and more efficiently," Ian Richardson, Blue Origin's senior vice president of operations, wrote in a blog post. "As we look ahead, this infrastructure is designed to support multiple flights per week by the end of the decade."
Blue Origin is working to raise its launch cadence as it competes with SpaceX, Elon Musk's rocket company, for commercial and government customers.
The company is also recovering from a setback in May, when one of its New Glenn rockets exploded on the launchpad. Blue Origin has been restoring the pad with the goal of returning New Glenn to flight by the end of 2026.
As part of the upgrades, Blue Origin said it is building a customer integration facility with the U.S. Space Force at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, which it says will let the company prepare multiple missions at once.
Funding and Florida footprint
CEO Dave Limp told CNBC's Morgan Brennan last month that the company's first outside funding round is "oversubscribed." Blue Origin raised $10 billion for the round, valuing it at $140 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Richardson said Blue Origin has invested more than $3 billion in its infrastructure and facilities in Florida, which now spans more than 20 sites across Brevard and Orange counties with more than 5,000 employees.
The expansion comes as the space industry grapples with a launch capacity shortage. SpaceX has stopped offering commercial rides on its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket to prioritize its massive Starship rocket. Venture capital firm Space Capital reported this week that $92.5 billion was invested in the commercial space sector in the first three quarters of 2026.
Demand is increasing from companies and governments trying to deploy satellites into orbit. Blue Origin and SpaceX both run their own satellite internet services and are launch partners for Amazon, which is standing up its full Leo low Earth orbit satellite constellation. SpaceX's Starlink currently dominates the market with more than 11,000 satellites in orbit.
Source: CNBC.
Questions and answers
- What is Blue Origin's Florida expansion?
- Blue Origin is spending $330 million to expand its Rocket Park campus in Cape Canaveral, adding two New Glenn launch and landing pads and capacity to produce up to 150 upper stages of the rocket each year.
- When will Blue Origin's new launch pads be ready?
- The expansion is expected to be complete in the summer of 2027. Blue Origin says the infrastructure is designed to support multiple flights per week by the end of the decade.
- What happened to Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket in May?
- One of its New Glenn rockets exploded on the launchpad in May. Blue Origin has been restoring the pad and aims to return New Glenn to flight by the end of 2026.
