XCOR Aerospace next week will announce plans to build rocket engines and potentially a suborbital spacecraft in Florida, likely at Kennedy Space Center.

The California company expects to create 152 jobs with this operations and manufacturing business, which it will announce at 10 a.m. on Aug. 23 at the Astronaut Encounter Theater at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

An invitation to the announcement says XCOR will establish its new business in Florida, and the only Florida site the company has seriously scouted was KSC.

Reached earlier today, an XCOR spokesman declined to comment beyond the invitation.

The company has been racking up cash and incentives in Florida over the past few years.

Space Florida, the states space economic development group, has committed to investing up to $3 million in XCOR. And in late July, Brevard County commissioners approved $182,400 in incentives to help the company open a facility at KSCs Shuttle Landing Facility. According to the company, the project would include hangar and flight operations, vehicle manufacturing, engine assembly and space tourism elements.

(KSC last week issued a request for commercial proposals to use the 15,000-foot runway at the Shuttle Landing Facility.)

The county incentives will act as a local match for nearly $1 million worth of state incentives for XCOR under the Florida Qualified Target Industry Tax Refund Program.

A representative from XCOR, which was founded in 1999, told commissioners the company hopes to open its KSC center in October 2014. The 152 technical jobs, created over five years, would have an average wage of $60,833.

XCOR builds, tests, sells and operates reusable, rocket-powered space vehicles and rocket engines that can be used for suborbital, orbital and deep-space applications. It hopes to launch small satellites to low-earth orbit from Florida, as well as having a role in environmental and military-related missions. The company is designing a second stage engine for United Launch Alliance, which operates at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

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XCOR Aerospace headed for Florida