Space company
Blue Origin’s decision to build the engine of its upcoming rocket in Huntsville, Ala., was disappointing but not unexpected, a Space Florida official says.
A decision by the space company Blue Origin to build the engine of its upcoming rocket in Huntsville, Ala., was disappointing but not unexpected, a Space Florida official said Monday.
President and CEO Frank DiBello said the decision had been anticipated for months. Still, that preparation did not completely take the sting out of the announcement, he said.
“While I’m disappointed, I’m not disheartened,” said DiBello, who has led Space Florida since 2009. “We are not going to win them all. That’s the name of the game.”
Although he did not share details, DiBello said the Space Coast put together an “aggressive” package, as it tried to lure Blue Origin’s rocket-production facility.
The news came on Huntsville’s official website, where a blog post accompanied by a photo of officials with Blue Origin and the city said that the company chose the location because of Huntsville’s history in aerospace manufacturing.
No other cities, in Florida or otherwise, were mentioned in the announcement. Emails for comment to Blue Origin were not returned.
Blue Origin’s billionaire founder Jeff Bezos had previously said that the BE-4 engine would initially be built at its Kent, Wash., facility while the company sought a permanent location.
In the blog post, Blue Origin President Robert Meyerson said of the Alabama selection: “The area’s skilled workforce and leading role in rocket propulsion make Huntsville the ideal location for our state-of-the-art manufacturing facility.”
The competition for the facility, which Huntsville officials say will create 342 jobs and include a $200 million capital investment from Blue Origin, had included several states, DiBello said.
“They are already pretty heavily committed to Florida,” DiBello said.
The space industry’s recent growth, which has seen an increase in Florida rocket launches by private space companies, including United Launch Alliance and SpaceX, has rekindled a competitive climate that has the state frequently bidding against other states such as Alabama, Texas and Colorado for major production work.
Florida scored a major victory in that battle in 2015, when Blue Origin announced that it would build all components of its New Glenn orbital vehicle — except for the engine — in a 750,000-square-foot facility on the Space Coast.
Work on that has already started, and officials have said the plan is to open the facility by the end of the year.
The New Glenn is scheduled for a test launch before 2020.