Blue Origin is hiring more than 300 new engineers, machinists and technicians and expanding its Huntsville rocket engine plant to meet the needs of its customer United Launch Alliance and power its own rockets, site lead Nathan Harris said today.
The plant that grew to “just north of 300″ employees in 2020, its first year of operation, and is “looking to grow significantly as we move through this year,” Harris said.
Harris confirmed that site preparation visible now beside the plant in Huntsville’s Cummings Research Park is for the expansion.
Blue Origin in Huntsville spent the pandemic supporting the company’s main engine plant in Kent Washington with parts for the company’s BE-3 and larger BE-4 engines, Harris said. “We are now actually in the process of building our first set of complete engines through our facility,” he said. Those first engines will be produced this year.
The BE-3 series, the smaller of Blue Origin’s two engine lines, powers the company’s New Shepard rocket and will help lift its bigger New Glenn rocket. The larger BE-4 engine is also the designated main engine for the big new Vulcan rocket United Launch Alliance is building in Decatur. Part of the facility expansion in Huntsville is to make those engines in Alabama.
The company has also been refurbishing Marshall Space Flight Center’s historic Test Stand 4670, which NASA leased to the company to test its engines.
“We’re getting very close,” Harris said. “They’re still doing quite a bit of retrofitting. As you learn, anytime you retrofit something that’s over 60 years old, it takes a little bit more and there’s a little bit more that you unearth that was undiscovered.”
Harris said he expects to be testing the BE-3 “in the next couple of months followed shortly by the BE-4.”
“We’re growing with our capability over at Test Stand 4670,” Harris said. “As I always tell the team, within the next couple of months, I look forward to hearing Blue Roar as you start seeing us test engines over at the historic site over there.”
Asked if Blue Origin owner Jeff Bezos will be coming to see a test and look at the expanded factory, Harris said he couldn’t say.
“But I do look forward to the day when we really start rolling engines out and having that opportunity to truly showcase the factory to the founder and to the CEO,” Harris said. “Any time you have senior leadership that’s really as invested as they are, it speaks high volumes to where they really see us going.”
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