The rocket, still unnamed, will be large enough to reach orbit, and it will debut later this decade, Jeff Bezos said.
Blue Origin, a secretive rocket company started by Jeffrey P. Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, made a splashy public announcement on Tuesday, saying it will build rockets and send them to orbit from Florida.
Blue Origin has leased Launch Complex 36 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the historic starting point for 145 launchings including those of NASA's Pioneer 10, the first spacecraft to visit Jupiter, and Surveyor 1, the first craft to land softly on the moon.
But Launch Complex 36 has sat idle for a decade. "Too long," Bezos said. "We can't wait to fix that."
Blue Origin will also open a factory nearby. "We're not just launching from here," Bezos said. "We're building here."
The company will invest $200 million and create 330 jobs, officials said.
It is the latest effort to revive Florida's Space Coast, which was economically battered after NASA stopped flying the space shuttles in 2011. Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, the rocket company started by Elon Musk, and the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, already use nearby launching pads at Cape Canaveral.
In the past, Blue Origin, based in Kent, Washington, south of Seattle, has sometimes waited days or months to mention successes or failures. Bezos provided brief updates on Blue Origin's website.
But even now, exactly what Blue Origin plans to launch from Cape Canaveral remains somewhat mysterious.
The rocket, still unnamed, will be large enough to reach orbit, and it will debut later this decade, Bezos said. But he did not give specifics about which markets he is aiming for. "We're building a vehicle for humans," Bezos said in a telephone interview. "That's my personal passion."
But such a rocket "can clearly lift payloads of all kinds," he said.
Blue Origin has leased Launch Complex 36 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the historic starting point for 145 launchings including those of NASA's Pioneer 10, the first spacecraft to visit Jupiter, and Surveyor 1, the first craft to land softly on the moon.
But Launch Complex 36 has sat idle for a decade. "Too long," Bezos said. "We can't wait to fix that."
Blue Origin will also open a factory nearby. "We're not just launching from here," Bezos said. "We're building here."
The company will invest $200 million and create 330 jobs, officials said.
It is the latest effort to revive Florida's Space Coast, which was economically battered after NASA stopped flying the space shuttles in 2011. Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, the rocket company started by Elon Musk, and the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, already use nearby launching pads at Cape Canaveral.
In the past, Blue Origin, based in Kent, Washington, south of Seattle, has sometimes waited days or months to mention successes or failures. Bezos provided brief updates on Blue Origin's website.
But even now, exactly what Blue Origin plans to launch from Cape Canaveral remains somewhat mysterious.
The rocket, still unnamed, will be large enough to reach orbit, and it will debut later this decade, Bezos said. But he did not give specifics about which markets he is aiming for. "We're building a vehicle for humans," Bezos said in a telephone interview. "That's my personal passion."
But such a rocket "can clearly lift payloads of all kinds," he said.
© 2015, The New York Times News Service
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