Billionaire Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin plans a south Denver operation, as evidenced by more than 50 Denver-based job openings on the company’s website, a paragraph about south Denver there as well as off-the-record confirmation from numerous sources.

The rapidly growing aerospace company, headquartered in Kent, Washington, currently has about 4,000 employees nationwide. A company spokesman declined comment Friday morning. 

Blue Origin’s Vivek Nagabhushan, director of flight sciences for the company’s Advanced Development Programs, posted Wednesday on LinkedIn a networking event called “Shape Your Future and the Future of Space” for Feb. 17 at Rock Bottom Brewery in Highlands Ranch.

Denver-based CEO headed to space

The company posted positions for engineers, “entry, descent, landing engineer,”  “Colorado system engineering opportunities” and many others. It’s also looking to hire in Phoenix, Reston, Va., Huntsville, Ala. and Emerald Coast in Florida.

“Blue Origin is expanding its presence in Colorado, and I am looking forward to building a world-class Flight Sciences team in our Highlands Ranch office,” Nagabhushan posted. “I have multiple leadership and individual contributor positions in Guidance and Control, Navigation and Sensors, Simulation, Mission and Trajectory Design, Aerodynamics, and Flight Operations. These positions will support multiple advanced spacecraft programs such Blue Moon and Orbital Reef.”

According to Blue Origin’s career page: “Our South Denver office will support functions across Blue with a focus on program management, systems engineering, avionics, software, integration, and mission design in support of our launch vehicle and space systems programs.” 

Colorado-based Sierra Space nabs large NASA contract

The writing was on the wall since Blue Origin has been partnering with, and buying, Colorado aerospace companies in the last year.

Louisville-based Sierra Space and Blue Origin announced plans for Orbital Reef space station — basically “a mixed-use business park” in space. Plans call for the “commercially developed, owned, and operated space station” to be built in low Earth orbit, according to a release from Sierra Space.

NASA awarded Blue Origin and Sierra Space a $130 million contract to design, build and operate Orbital Reef.

Denver-based Voyager Space’s CEO Dylan Taylor flew to space aboard a Blue Origin ship in December. He declined comment Friday, according to his public relations team.

Barry Hamilton, CEO of Red Canyon Engineering & Software, said his team has been working with Blue Origin on New Glenn and the company’s Human Landing System phase A contract (Space X won the Phase B contract).

“We’re looking forward to working with them here,” Hamilton said.

New Glenn is “named after pioneering astronaut John Glenn, New Glenn is a single configuration heavy-lift launch vehicle capable of carrying people and payloads routinely to Earth orbit and beyond,” according to Blue Origin’s website.

Space Symposium: Colorado aerospace industry the Mall of America for all things in orbit

The company also announced last month it purchased Honeybee Robotics, the research and development engineering company that has delivered “more than 1,000 projects to government and industrial customers in the spacecraft, planetary exploration, defense robotics” sectors, according to Honeybee, which has a large presence in Longmont.

“We’ve been building Honeybee’s capabilities and brand for almost forty years,” said Kiel Davis, president of Honeybee Robotics, in an earlier release. “Joining Blue Origin is a major step forward for us. … With Blue Origin we look forward to further expanding our capacity to meet the most exciting challenges in next-generation space transportation, space mobility, space destinations, and planetary science and exploration.”