Blue Origin to build rocket engine plant in Alabama

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' commercial space company Blue Origin is coming to Huntsville -- not Florida-- to manufacture its rocket engines.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey announced Monday that Blue Origin, a private spaceflight company, will build its BE-4 rocket engine in Huntsville. Ivey said the project will create 350 new jobs and be a $200 million investment.

Florida, along with several other states including South Carolina and Washington, had also tossed their hat in the ring for this 200,000-foot facility, according to Space Florida.

"We very much would have liked to win that project, but we’re doing pretty well right now anyway so we’ll focus on the next one," Space Florida's chief of strategic alliances Dale Ketcham told News 6.

The engines are small enough that they could easily be transported, putting a number of states in play, Ketcham said.

The powerful BE-4 engine is designed to end dependence on Russian-built engines for launching payloads into space.

The BE-4s will be used on Blue Origin's heavy lift vehicle, the New Glenn rocket, and on United Launch Alliance’s heavy lift rocket, the Vulcan.

Ketcham said it was not surprising the Alabama landed the project, because Blue Origin's first big customer ULA also has a major presence in northern Alabama.

Ivey said that the project will build on the historic role that Huntsville and Alabama have played in the development of the American space program.

“Alabama is a great state for aerospace manufacturing and we are proud to produce America’s next rocket engine right here in Rocket City,” said Robert Meyerson, president of Blue Origin. “The area’s skilled workforce and leading role in rocket propulsion development make Huntsville the ideal location for our state-of-the-art manufacturing facility.”

Construction will begin on the new facility in Cummings Research Park after ULA awards Blue Origin the engine production contract, according to the Huntsville Madison County Chamber of Commerce.

Blue Origin has been developing its BE-4 engine since 2011 and ULA officials have been very clear about the certain milestones they wish to see accomplished before awarding the contract.

Local schools in Madison County, Alabama, will be able to launch experiments on a Blue Origin rocket in 2018, according to the news release.

Blue Origin's new 750,000-square-foot rocket factory is under construction outside of Kennedy Space Center in Florida in Exploration Park.

“We don’t win them all,” Ketcham said, but Space Florida is happy with the Blue Origin rocket facility they did land.

The company will use the factory to manufacture its New Glenn rocket, named for Astronaut John Glenn.

Bezos recently said construction is moving at an extraordinary pace. The new facility is expected to be complete by the end of the year.

OneWeb Satellites broke ground in March on its high-volume satellite manufacturing facility. It’s located directly across the road from Blue Origin in Exploration Park.

The company has a contract with Blue Origin starting in 2020 to launch five of its satellites on the New Glenn.