Blue Origin plans to construct a 140-foot-tall payload processing facility at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station that will create an estimated 23 new jobs boasting average salaries of $115,000.
This 125,000-square-foot structure will improve upon and expand Blue Origin's mission capabilities, Space Florida Chief Investment Officer Ronald Lau said Wednesday, Aug. 26, during the agency's Investment Committee meeting.
The private space company's total capital investment on the project should clock in at $160 million, Lau said.
To support construction, Space Florida management proposes allocating up to $2.5 million in matching-grant funding via the Florida Department of Transportation's Spaceport Improvement Program. The Space Florida board of directors should cast funding votes in early September.
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Space Florida President and CEO Rob Long said pre-launch payload processing remains "a critical enabler" and an area of needed growth to assure access to space, including national security and exploration activities from the Space Force installation and NASA's neighboring Kennedy Space Center.
"It's one of the key gaps that are out there," Long said.
On the topic, All Points Logistics, which is headquartered on Merritt Island, landed a $250 million Space Force contract last month to design and build a large spacecraft processing center at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. In Florida, company officials also hope to break ground on a similar facility by year's end at KSC on 65 acres on Schwarz Road near Kennedy Parkway.
Blue Origin is in the midst of a massive expansion phase across the spaceport and surrounding area that has accelerated since the May 28 New Glenn rocket explosion, which heavily damaged the company's Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The company continues leasing and eyeing land and facilities at Space Coast Regional Airport in Titusville, as one example.
"Determination… nothing will stop this freight train to the moon… pad recovery at lightning speed," Tory Bruno, president of Blue Origin's National Security Group, said in a Thursday, Aug. 27, tweet featuring photos of the LC-36 reconstruction campaign.
In other business Wednesday, the Space Florida Investment Committee discussed Relativity Space's ambitious $565 million initial expansion phase — which is projected to create 590 new jobs with average salaries of $86,000 on Florida's Space Coast.
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Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY, where he has covered news since 2004. Contact Neale at [email protected]. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1
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This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Blue Origin to build $160M space payload facility, create 6-figure salaries