The Space Coast Aerospace Cluster in Melbourne, Florida, in 2026

The Space Coast aerospace cluster is the group of aerospace, defense and electronics employers in Brevard County, and in Melbourne it is built around Melbourne Orlando International Airport and the L3Harris headquarters.

The airport describes itself as an epicenter for aerospace, defense and manufacturing. Its own roster of nearby firms names Dassault Falcon Jet, Avidyne Corporation, Satcom Direct, Southeast Aerospace, GE Transportation, Thales and STS Mod Center, together with Northrop Grumman, Embraer Executive Jets, L3Harris, Collins Aerospace and others (Melbourne Orlando International Airport). The airport also puts its daily population at more than 20,000 people and its annual economic impact at more than $3 billion; those are the airport's own estimates, and its business office answers at 321-723-6227.

Northrop Grumman, the top employer in the city's own count, says its Melbourne campus spans 17 buildings and 109 acres beside the airport. Work there covers design, development and testing of battle management systems and advanced manned aircraft, and the flagship programs the company names include the Navy's E-2D Advanced Hawkeye (Northrop Grumman).

The cluster does not stop at the Melbourne city line. L3Harris announced two new buildings for neighboring Palm Bay, a satellite integration facility and an advanced microelectronics facility, each projected by the company to bring about 100 jobs (L3Harris). The federal QCEW counts used below are published for Brevard County as a whole, not for the city.

Brevard County, which includes Melbourne, counted 10,341 private aerospace product and parts manufacturing jobs in March 2026, up 1,187 jobs or 13.0 percent from March 2025.

That is the latest federal count, from the first quarter 2026 file of the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (BLS QCEW Q1 2026). BLS released the first quarter 2026 county data on August 28, 2026, and notes that over-the-year changes in its news release are adjusted and may differ from the unadjusted figures in its data tools, which is where the Brevard numbers on this page come from (BLS County Employment and Wages). Over the same twelve months all Brevard employment rose 0.6 percent, to 245,550 jobs in March 2026, so aerospace grew about twenty times faster than the county economy as a whole. The first quarter file also shows 43 aerospace establishments in Brevard, one more than a year earlier.

The 2026 figures continue a run that started earlier. The annual files show Brevard aerospace manufacturing at 4,394 jobs in 2020 and 9,500 in 2025 (QCEW 2020; QCEW 2025). The annual 2025 figure is the full year number; the March 2026 count is a single month inside the first quarter.

Around Melbourne the cluster is more than aircraft plants: instrument makers, communications equipment firms, engineering service companies and federal agencies all add jobs in Brevard County.

Sources: BLS QCEW Brevard County 2025 and BLS QCEW Brevard County 2020. The instruments group (NAICS 3345) covers search, detection and navigation equipment along with other measuring and control devices. Engineering services grew from 4,600 to 7,751 jobs over five years, an increase of about 69 percent, and in March 2026 stood at 7,391 (QCEW Q1 2026).

Two lines in the table moved the other way. Communications equipment manufacturing fell from 1,060 to 844 jobs, though it still pays the highest average in the group at $157,345. Federal government employment in Brevard slipped from 6,679 to 6,438, and the federal national security line dropped from 2,329 in 2020 to 1,992 in 2025, including a 19.1 percent fall in 2025 alone (QCEW 2025). Cluster growth since 2020 has come from private contractors, not from federal payrolls.

Northrop Grumman is the anchor inside Melbourne, with 6,818 employees in fiscal 2025, or 16.46 percent of all city employment counted in the City of Melbourne financial report.

The same top ten also lists L3Harris Technologies with 1,778 employees and Rockwell Collins, now Collins Aerospace, with 1,411, plus MC Assembly with 642 and WABTEC Transportation System with 405 (City of Melbourne ACFR 2025). Northrop Grumman, L3Harris and Rockwell Collins alone account for 10,007 of the 21,188 jobs held by the top ten.

The comparison with 2016 shows the cluster's center of gravity shifting inside the city. Northrop Grumman had 2,894 Melbourne employees in 2016, ranking second behind Health First, while L3Harris (then Harris) had 2,532 (City of Melbourne). Northrop more than doubled its Melbourne count over nine years. The schedule is compiled by the city Revenue Department with the companies listed, so it is the city's own count, while QCEW is the federal count for the county.

Of the 41,116 employed Melbourne residents counted in the 2020 to 2024 American Community Survey, 5,157, or 12.5 percent, work in manufacturing and 6,296, or 15.3 percent, in professional, scientific, management, administrative and waste management services.

Those Census Bureau estimates come from the ACS 2020-2024 5-year profile DP03 for Melbourne city (Census ACS DP03 Melbourne). Brevard County as a whole has 285,242 employed residents, 12.4 percent in manufacturing and 14.0 percent in professional services, so Melbourne's shares in both sectors sit slightly above the county's (Census ACS DP03 Brevard County).

Pay looks different depending on which count is used. Melbourne households have an ACS median income of $66,991, while the county median is $78,476, and the four cluster industries in the QCEW table pay average annual wages of $114,223 to $157,345. The ACS profile describes residents of the city and the QCEW rows describe jobs located in Brevard County, so the figures cannot be combined, and no official table read for this guide splits these industries by where workers live.

In 2026 the Space Coast cluster around Melbourne is still adding aerospace jobs at a double digit pace, while federal national security jobs fell in 2025 and engineering services employment in March 2026 sat below its 2025 average.

Aerospace manufacturing in Brevard was up 13.0 percent in March 2026 from a year earlier, but engineering services employment in March 2026, 7,391, was below the 2025 annual average of 7,751 (QCEW Q1 2026; QCEW 2025). One quarter is a single reading; the second quarter 2026 QCEW file for Brevard is the next official check on whether the engineering dip holds.

On the employer side, the newest announced capacity is outside Melbourne. L3Harris said in December 2024 that its satellite integration and microelectronics buildings in Palm Bay would each add about 100 jobs, with average salaries projected at about $105,000 and $111,000 (L3Harris). Inside Melbourne, the airport points businesses to its Future Land Use Map of aeronautical and non-aeronautical properties available for lease (Melbourne Orlando International Airport).

Last verified: October 18, 2026, by re-pulling the Brevard QCEW files (2020 and 2025 annual, first quarter 2026), the BLS county release, both ACS 2020-2024 DP03 profiles and the Melbourne ACFR employer schedule.