Bezos to build new Rocket City
August 8, 2017
By Chris Forrester
Blue Origin, the rocket-launching business founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, is to build its all-new BE-4 rocket engine at Cummings Research Park, at ‘Rocket City’, Huntsville in Alabama.
‘Rocket City’ is the name given to Huntsville and is already home to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center as well as the US Army’s Aviation & Missile Command.
The Cummings Research Park, already the USA’s second-largest such facility and part of the Huntsville area, is located close to the Redstone military arsenal.
Bezos is putting $200 million into the new factory and the plan is to use the new engine for his own Blue Origin fleet of rockets, and also potentially supply the Atlas/Delta ‘United Launch Alliance’ (ULA) with engines for their work and thus eliminate ULA’s dependence on Russian-supplied engines.