Aerospace Industry in Melbourne, Florida

Brevard County, home to Melbourne, averaged 9,500 private jobs in aerospace product and parts manufacturing in 2025, more than double the 4,394 it had in 2020, according to federal wage records.

The figures come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages for Brevard County and industry code NAICS 3364 (BLS QCEW 2025; BLS QCEW 2020). QCEW reports counties, not cities, so the Brevard numbers include Melbourne, Palm Bay, the Kennedy Space Center area and the rest of the county; no official series isolates Melbourne city limits.

Brevard aerospace employment grew about 116 percent from 2020 to 2025 while all Brevard employment grew about 13 percent. In 2025 alone the Brevard aerospace count rose by 1,115 jobs, or 13.3 percent, with the number of establishments unchanged at 42, while total county employment rose 0.6 percent (BLS QCEW). With the establishment count flat, the gain came from larger payrolls at the same number of establishments.

Guided missile and space vehicle manufacturing is the largest Brevard aerospace segment, with 7,530 jobs at 18 establishments in 2025 and a concentration about 59 times the national share.

Inside the aerospace total, BLS reports each detailed industry separately for Brevard County (BLS QCEW 2025). Other aircraft parts and auxiliary equipment makers employed 1,166 people at 10 establishments, while aircraft manufacturing proper counted 47 jobs at six establishments. Space vehicle propulsion units, with five Brevard establishments, has no published employment figure.

The location quotient compares Brevard's share of jobs in an industry with the national share: 59.02 for guided missile and space vehicle work means that segment is about 59 times more concentrated in Brevard than in the United States (BLS QCEW). Search, detection and navigation instrument makers, the defense electronics side that sits next to aerospace in the Melbourne economy, add another 6,404 Brevard jobs at a 33.31 quotient, within a wider navigational, measuring, electromedical and control instruments group (NAICS 33451) of 6,695 jobs.

Brevard aerospace manufacturing paid $135,215 a year on average in 2025, almost twice the $70,833 average for all Brevard County jobs.

The weekly equivalent was $2,600 for Brevard aerospace work against $1,362 for all county jobs (BLS QCEW 2025). Pay in the guided missile and space vehicle segment averaged $140,148, and aircraft parts work averaged $95,244, so the Brevard aerospace average is pulled up by the space and defense side.

Company announcements line up with those county averages. L3Harris said in December 2024 that a planned Palm Bay satellite integration building would bring about 100 new jobs averaging about $105,000 a year, and a planned microelectronics building about 100 jobs averaging about $111,000 (L3Harris, December 2024). Statewide, L3Harris reports 9,000 employees at 27 Florida locations and direct Florida wages above $1 billion.

L3Harris, headquartered in Melbourne, is the largest Space Coast aerospace employer, and Northrop Grumman, Embraer, Collins Aerospace and Dassault Falcon Jet are among the companies Melbourne Orlando International Airport lists in its neighborhood.

The Economic Development Commission of Florida's Space Coast states that L3Harris, the area's largest employer in the industry, keeps its main headquarters in Melbourne, and that Collins Aerospace, Leonardo DRS, Northrop Grumman Corporation and Embraer hold major centers in the south of the county (Space Coast EDC). L3Harris has been headquartered in Florida since 1978 (L3Harris).

Melbourne Orlando International Airport says its campus carries a daily population above 20,000 and an economic impact above $3 billion a year, and lists aerospace, defense and manufacturing firms including Thales, Satcom Direct, Southeast Aerospace and Avidyne among its neighbors (Melbourne Orlando International Airport). Northrop Grumman's Melbourne site covers 17 buildings on 109 acres next to the airfield (Northrop Grumman). Company by company detail, including Northrop Grumman, Embraer, Dassault and flight training at Florida Tech, is in the Melbourne aerospace guide.

The newest large L3Harris production space is in Palm Bay, just south of Melbourne, while the company headquarters remains in Melbourne.

L3Harris won a state High Impact Business Performance incentive worth $2 million, paid in two equal parts in 2025 and 2027, for two new buildings in Palm Bay: a satellite integration plant of about 93,000 square feet and a microelectronics plant of about 98,000 square feet (L3Harris, December 2024). In August 2025 the company finished a $100 million expansion of its Palm Bay satellite integration and test facility, now 94,000 square feet, built for satellites that track hypersonic missile threats (L3Harris, August 2025).

For Melbourne residents this means aerospace hiring tied to these projects sits a short commute away across the Palm Bay line, while the airport campus in Melbourne continues to market aeronautical and non-aeronautical land for lease; airport business inquiries go to 321-723-6227, 1 Air Terminal Parkway (Melbourne airport). The City of Melbourne Economic Development Division works on attracting and expanding private investment in Melbourne itself (City of Melbourne).

Melbourne's aerospace base grew from a World War II naval air station and the 1950s and 1960s rocket and space program at Cape Canaveral, which displaced agriculture in the economy of Melbourne and Eau Gallie.

Naval Air Station Melbourne opened in 1942 on what had been the Melbourne-Eau Gallie Airport, trained pilots in F6F Hellcat planes, and was turned back to Melbourne after the war; Eastern Airlines began commercial service in 1953 (Genealogical Society of South Brevard). The same history records that as space exploration gained momentum in the 1960s, related industries and the space program itself began to supplant agriculture in Melbourne and Eau Gallie.

The Brevard County Historical Commission traces the larger shift: after the war the coastal scrub of Cape Canaveral became home to America's missile testing program, and the launch complex at Kennedy Space Center produced a boom in population growth and development that continues to influence the region (Brevard County Historical Commission). The 2025 job counts above, led by guided missile and space vehicle manufacturing, are the modern form of that history, with the Melbourne airfield that served as a wartime naval air station now neighbored by aerospace and defense companies.

Federal counts cover Brevard County as a whole and withhold some small segments, and the 2025 annual averages checked October 14, 2026 are the latest full year, so Melbourne-only aerospace job totals are not published.

The 2025 Brevard QCEW file withholds employment for the five space vehicle propulsion establishments (BLS QCEW). The Space Coast EDC adds, from BLS data, that Brevard manufacturing jobs rose 19 percent since 2001 while falling 28 percent nationally (Space Coast EDC).