Jeff Bezos sure knows how to make an entrance.
The billionaire Amazon CEO and founder of the private spaceflight company Blue Origin joined Instagram Thursday (July 20) in a truly novel way: with an aerial tour of Blue Origin's rocket factory in Florida as a sunglasses-wearing Bezos relaxed on the roof in a lawn chair.
"Rocket Factory Coming Soon," a sign in Bezos' hand reads.
Blue Origin is building the rocket factory in Exploration Park near NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of Orlando. The 750,000 square-foot facility is where Blue Origin will build its reusable New Glenn rocket, a massive 270-foot-tall (82 meters) booster for orbital launches from the nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
"Manufacturing facility for the heavy-lift New Glenn launch vehicle is coming along nicely," Bezos wrote in the Instagram post.
Blue Origin began construction of the rocket factory in late 2016 and the facility is expected to be completed by the end of this year. It will be used to build New Glenn rocket boosters and refurbish used rockets for future reuse, company officials have said.
Blue Origin has repeatedly flown its first reusable rocket, the New Shepard booster and spacecraft, during a series of test flights. The company has said it will fly passengers on New Shepard in the future, but has not yet revealed the price for those space tourism trips.
Blue Origin unveiled plans for New Glenn in 2016, and followed up in March 2017 with a stunning animation of the rocket's launch and landing.
In March, Blue Origin also announced its first two satellite customers to launch on New Glenn. Blue Origin will use its New Glenn boosters to launch a satellite for Eutelsat Communications sometime between 2021 and 2022. And the global communications company OneWeb has ordered five New Glenn launches for its own satellite constellation.
Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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