The first steel is going up in Florida on Kent-based Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket factory.
Owner Jeff Bezos sent an email and photo on Tuesday to announce construction had started at Exploration Park, an area at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral in Brevard County. The 750,000 square-foot factory is expected to be done by the end of 2017. The company broke ground on the project in June.
“The team has made extraordinary progress,” said Bezos, a billionaire and Amazon.com founder, who started Blue Origin in 2000 in his efforts to build launch vehicles to carry people to space. Bezos also owns the Washington Post newspaper.
Engines for the rockets will be built in Kent. Blue Origin plans to launch its orbital vehicles in Cape Canaveral within the next 10 years.
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