CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Blue Origin’s footprint on the Space Coast may have been temporarily scarred by its massive launch pad explosion in May, but Jeff Bezos’ company has bigger and better plans for the rebuild.

Hundreds of workers continue daily forays into Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station as the company frantically tries to rebuild the pad to support New Glenn launches before the end of the year.

The pad suffered major damage from a May 28 hot fire test of the rocket, which exploded in a fireball seen across Central Florida and registered 2.5 on the Richter scale.

But the company on Wednesday also detailed its plans to build out a second pad for a larger version of New Glenn as well as building out a new vertical integration facility and the new payload processing facility it had been awarded by the Space Force.

The current New Glenn rocket is already a behemoth, standing 322 feet tall with a fairing, or nosecone, diameter of 7 meters or 23 feet. It’s powered by seven BE-4 engines that produce 3.9 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, and an upper stage that uses two BE-3U engines.

The bigger New Glenn 9×4 will stand closer to 400 feet tall and feature a fairing with a diameter of 8.7 meters, or more than 25 feet. It’s called the 9×4 version as it will have nine BE-4 engines on the first stage and four BE-3U engines on the upper stage.

That will increase its power at liftoff to 4.5 million pounds of thrust. The increased upper stage capacity means it will allow flights of 70 metric tons, or 154,000 pounds, to low-Earth orbit, or 14 metric tons, or about 31,000 pounds, to geosynchronous orbit, or more than 20 metric tons, or 44,000 pounds, to trans-lunar injection.

In comparison, the Space Launch System rocket current Block 1B version can handle 38 metric tons, or 84,000 pounds, to deep space including the Orion spacecraft and its crew.

The bigger rocket needs a bigger pad, and so the New Glenn 9×4 will be launched from a new Launch Complex 36B adjacent to LC-39A, currently being rebuilt to support the existing New Glenn 7×2 rockets.

The new tower to support this rocket will climb to more than 700 feet.

“Proud to honor the legacy of Launch Complex 36. Rebuilding LC-36A and flying again this year remains our priority. Alongside that work, a separate team is beginning work on LC-36B, the operational home for New Glenn’s 9×4,” said Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp in a post on X.

He said the company was sourcing 2,500 tons of steel columns that will be integrated with beams and bracing to form a series of 50-foot cube modules that will be stacked for form the tower.

The company will also begin to build out a new vertical integration facility where the rocket will be prepped before rolling out to the pad.

Also, Blue Origin last year won a $78.25 million contract from Space Systems Command to construct a space vehicle processing facility on the Space Coast by 2028. That facility will be housed within Launch Complex 36.

It will be used to integrate Department of Defense payloads for not just Blue Origin, but other launch providers with national security missions.

Space Coast options to process satellites is limited, and has already faced logjams that can delay missions. The job involves fueling the space vehicles and then packing them for transport.

Blue Origin has invested more than $3 billion on its Space Coast operations, including a massive campus for rocket and moon lander manufacturing in Merritt Island.

The company now employs more than 4,500 in Florida and works with more than 500 suppliers within the state.

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