Blue Origin outlines plans for second Cape Canaveral launch pad

WASHINGTON — Blue Origin disclosed new details about its plans to not only rebuild but also expand its Florida launch site, adding a second pad for a larger version of New Glenn.

The company announced Aug. 12 that it will add a second pad to Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. That pad, LC-36B, will be designed for the New Glenn 9×4, an upgraded version of the vehicle.

The announcement did not disclose a schedule for building the new pad. That work will include not just the pad itself but also a vertical integration facility for the rocket and a payload processing facility. The Space Force awarded Blue Origin a $78.2 million contract in October 2025 for the payload processing facility.

The company was already planning a second pad at LC-36 before the May 28 explosion of a New Glenn rocket on the existing pad during a static-fire test. That explosion caused significant damage to the pad, which the company is now rebuilding.

That rebuilt pad, now called LC-36A, will be used for the current version of New Glenn, called New Glenn 7×2 because it uses seven BE-4 engines in its first stage and two BE-3U engines in its upper stage. The larger New Glenn 9×4 will have nine BE-4 engines in its first stage and four BE-3U engines in its upper stage.

Blue Origin announced plans for New Glenn 9×4 in November 2025 but did not disclose when it expected the vehicle to begin flying. The company did not provide a schedule for the vehicle in the announcement of the new pad.

“Rebuilding LC-36A and flying again this year remains our priority,” Dave Limp, chief executive of Blue Origin, said in an Aug. 12 social media post.

That rebuilding involves a shift to what he previously called a “horizontal/vertical hybrid CONOPS,” or concept of operations, for pad operations. Rather than the previous approach of horizontal integration of the entire rocket, only the first stage will be rolled out to the pad horizontally and raised to a vertical position there. The upper stage and payload will be transported separately to the pad in a vertical orientation and installed on the booster using a crane.

He said Aug. 13 that the company has been testing those operations at another Cape Canaveral facility, LC-11, using cranes to install a New Glenn upper stage simulator and payload fairing on top of a forward dome representing the top of the first stage. In those tests this week, he said, “the team conducted vertical stacking lifts and matings, gathered wind-damping data and effects, and tested new mechanisms that guide and slot these structures into place.”

“The ingenuity it took to stand up this test quickly is exactly what gets us to flight soonest,” he added.