Upper Stage Facility to Bring 500 Aerospace Jobs to Cape Canaveral Spaceport
Blue Origin Expands Florida Rocket Park With New $600 Million Manufacturing Complex
A $600 million manufacturing facility that will add 500 high-wage aerospace jobs to Florida’s Space Coast has been announced at Blue Origin’s Rocket Park campus at Cape Canaveral Spaceport, with Gov. Ron DeSantis citing the investment as a benchmark for the state’s competitive business environment.
“Project Horizon is the latest and most ambitious chapter in Blue Origin’s decade-long commitment to Florida.”
Dave Limp, Blue Origin
Dubbed Project Horizon, the expansion will add an estimated 830,000-square-foot upper stage manufacturing facility to the Rocket Park campus. The new facility is designed to increase the volume and mass that can be delivered to orbit from Florida. Blue Origin is currently the only company to both manufacture and launch rockets from within the state.
“Blue Origin’s expansion is proof that when you get the fundamentals right, the best companies bring their best jobs to you,” said Gov. DeSantis. “Florida has created the ideal environment where companies can succeed, scale and keep choosing Florida over and over again — promoting growth that reinforces the state’s position as a national leader in advanced manufacturing and aviation and aerospace.”
The 500 jobs created by the project are expected to pay an average salary of more than $98,000. The announcement comes as Florida’s labor market posted record numbers in April 2026, with total nonagricultural employment reaching 10,032,900 jobs and the state’s labor force reaching 11,150,000 — both all-time highs.
The project will draw on Florida’s Spaceport Improvement Program (SIP), a partnership between Space Florida and the Florida Department of Transportation. Since its founding in 2012, the SIP has funded 48 major infrastructure projects, leveraging more than $531 million in state investment to attract $3.3 billion in private industry funding across Florida’s spaceport system.
“Project Horizon is the latest and most ambitious chapter in Blue Origin’s decade-long commitment to Florida,” said Dave Limp, CEO of Blue Origin. “Since 2015, we’ve scaled to nearly 4,000 employees, invested more than $2.3 billion across 500 Florida suppliers, and expanded to 11 sites across Brevard and Orange Counties. And we’re just getting started.”
FDOT Secretary Jared W. Perdue, P.E., said the project reflects the state’s deliberate approach to infrastructure. “The Spaceport Improvement Program demonstrates that strategy in action, supporting projects that advance innovation and long-term growth across Florida’s spaceport system,” Perdue said.
Space Florida Chair Jeanette Nuñez said the announcement validates the organization’s long-range investment strategy. “Adding another Blue Origin project to our roster is that vision brought to life, and it reaffirms Florida as the world’s premier destination for aerospace,” Nuñez said.
Col. Rob Long (Ret.), President and CEO of Space Florida, pointed to the operational advantages of consolidating design, manufacturing, and launch within a single state. “When a company can design, build, and launch from the same state, it creates efficiencies that are hard to replicate anywhere else,” Long said. “Blue Origin continues to choose the state that has spent more than a decade systematically building the conditions for them to scale here.”
Florida Secretary of Commerce J. Alex Kelly said the expansion reinforces the state’s standing in the aerospace sector. “Blue Origin’s latest investment into Florida’s Space Coast not only supports high-wage job creation and strengthens Florida’s aerospace workforce, but it reinforces the long-term economic impact of strategic infrastructure investments across our spaceport system,” Kelly said.