Blue Origin's OLS manufacturing building, south of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, on Merritt Island, Florida, 2018.
In September 2015, Blue Origin leased Launch Complex 36 (LC-36) in Cape Canaveral, Florida to build a launch pad for their orbital launch vehicle New Glenn. As of March 2016, the first Blue Origin launch from LC36 is planned for 2020. An August 2015 estimate predicted that initial launch happening earlier than 2020. Groundbreaking for the facility to begin construction occurred in June 2016. By March 2018, Blue's construction at LC-36 was lagging, but the company stated they did not think it would delay achieving the anticipated 2020 initial launch of New Glenn.
The Blue Origin orbital launch site will be situated on a total of 306 acres of leased land assembled from former Launch Complexes 11, 36A, and 36B. The land parcel will be used to build a rocket engine test stand for the BE-4 engine, a launch mount—called the Orbital Launch Site by Blue—and a reusable booster refurbishment facility for the New Glennlaunch vehicle, which is expected to land on a seaborne platform and returned to Port Canaveral for refurbishment.
In addition, the manufacturing of "large elements, such as first stages, second stages, payload fairings, etc." will occur at the Blue launch vehicle production facility on Space Commerce Parkway in nearby Exploration Park, near the entrance to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex on Merritt Island.
