MERRITT ISLAND, FL—A little more than a year after opening its massive rocket manufacturing center at Kennedy Space Center, Blue Origin LLC has plans to expand it by 90 acres to support its commercial space vehicles that will launch sometime in the 2020s.

MADISON, AL—Aerobotix Inc. has developed a robotic assembly line that scans, sands, paints and measures complex missile components, thereby achieving critical tolerances required for hypersonic flight.

NEW ORLEANS—Governor John Bel Edwards recently announced that the State of Louisiana signed an agreement with NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility that could lead to creation of the Louisiana Space Campus, a dedicated 50-acre business park within NASA’s 829-acre site here.

FRANKFURT—Updated statistics issued by the International Federation of Robotics show that the average robot density in the manufacturing industry reached a new global record of 113 units per 10,000 employees in 2019.

COLOGNE, Germany—A team of students from the Munich University of Applied Sciences has developed a 3D printer with drylin linear units from igus GmbH that can cost-effectively produce structural parts in space.

BOLIVAR, MO—The first Bass Buggy 16 Pontoon Boat recently rolled off the line at Bass Pro's new assembly plant here.

PORTLAND, TN—ABB Installation Products is making a multimillion-dollar investment this year and staffing up to 40 new positions as it expands and updates its manufacturing facility here to meet increased demand for electrical equipment.

MOLINE, IL—Deere & Co. is using artificial intelligence and machine vision to detect and fix porosity defects in welds on its tractors.

WASHINGTON—U.S. manufacturers have long grumbled about labor shortages, but the past year has proven particularly frustrating.

MIRABEL, Quebec—Airbus is working to repurpose part of an aircraft assembly plant here that has been vacant since Bombardier ended production of the CRJ passenger jet.