Kent-based Blue Origin breaks ground on Florida rocket factory

Kent-based Blue Origin announced on Tuesday that it had broken ground earlier in June on a rocket factory in Florida.

“The 750,000-square-foot rocket factory (will be) custom-built from the ground up to accommodate manufacturing, processing, integration and testing,” owner Jeff Bezos said in a Tuesday email to the media. “Among other things, the facility hosts large scale friction stir welding and automated composite processing equipment. All of the vehicles will be manufactured in this facility except for the engines.

“Initial BE-4 engine production will occur at our Kent facility while we conduct a site selection process later this year for a larger engine production facility to accommodate higher production rates.”

The vehicle manufacturing facility is expected to be complete in December 2017, Bezos said.

“It’s exciting to see the bulldozers in action – we’re clearing the way for the production of a reusable fleet of orbital vehicles that we will launch and land, again and again,” Bezos said.

Bezos, a billionaire and Amazon.com founder, started Blue Origin in 2000 in his efforts to build launch vehicles to carry people to space. Bezos also owns the Washington Post newspaper.

Bill Ellis, city of Kent economic development analyst, said city staff has been in communication with Blue Origin about trying to get the larger engine production facility built in Kent. He said there is plenty of competition, including Florida sites, for the new plant.

But Ellis added Blue Origin plans to keep its headquarters in Kent. The company has more than 450 employees in Kent and expects that to grow to more than 700, Ellis said.

“The Kent facility is not going away, it’s growing,” Ellis said. “The main headquarters will remain in Kent. It’s staying in put.”