Blue Origin broke ground in Huntsville, Ala., this week for a facility that will produce the engines for the United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur spacecraft and the New Glenn launch system.
“A little more than three months ago, ULA chose Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine to power our Vulcan Centaur rocket, which we are manufacturing at our facility in Decatur, Alabama,” ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno said in a statement. “I am pleased that Blue Origin has chosen to join the more than 200 ULA suppliers doing business here in Alabama.”
The facility under construction is expected to cost $200 million, cover 36 acres, and employ 300 – 400 people. It will be used to produce the BE-3 and BE-4 engines. It is expected to open in 2020. The project also includes a partnership with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center for the refurbishment of test stand 4670, which was used to test the Saturn V first stage and the space shuttle’s main engines.
Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith told AL.com the process will include a high degree of automation and incorporate 3D printing.
“All of our things are ‘build to print,’” Smith also said. “Everything that you’ll see that’s on that engine is actually going to be built from effectively bar stock or powder that we put into that facility.”
Blue Origin, founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, plans to test the two-stage, partially recoverable New Glenn in its first space flight in 2021. The ULA Vulcan Centaur is slated to replace the ULA Atlas and Delta rockets, uncoupling them from the Russian-made engines the Atlas currently uses.
