I n a recent email from Jeff Bezos, he announces that Blue Origin, which is an American privately-funded aero- space manufacturer and spaceflight services company set up by Amazon.com founder with its headquarters in Kent, Washington, USA, had broke ground on their orbital vehicle manufacturing site in Florida. Blue Origin continues to be driven by their company motto of, Gradatim Ferociter or “step by step, ferocious- ly,” their incremental development process builds upon each success as they develop ground-breaking space- flight systems. Blue Origin does not just build rockets, Jeff and the rest of the Team at Blue Origin are building a culture around methodical innovation and exploration. Blue Origin’s 750,000 square foot rocket factory is cus- tom-built from the ground up and is expected to be com- pleted in December of 2017 to accommodate manufac- turing, processing, integration and testing. Among other things, the facility hosts large scale friction stir welding and automated composite processing equipment. Jeff states that, “All of their orbital vehicle will be manu- factured in this facility except for the engines. With the Initial BE-4 engine production occurring at their Kent facility while we conduct a site selection process later this year for a larger engine production facility to accommo- date higher production rates.” Jeff also says in the email, “It’s exciting to see the bulldoz- ers 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.”
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SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS • JULY 2016
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