Aviation Manufacturing in Melbourne, Florida

Northrop Grumman, Embraer Executive Jets, L3Harris, Collins Aerospace and Dassault Falcon Jet are among the aerospace companies that Melbourne Orlando International Airport names on its campus (MLB business opportunities).

The airport's own list of campus companies runs: Northrop Grumman, Embraer Executive Jets, L3Harris, Collins Aerospace, STS Mod Center, Thales, GE Transportation, Southeast Aerospace, Satcom Direct, Avidyne Corporation and Dassault Falcon Jet (MLB).

The Space Coast EDC places major Collins Aerospace, Leonardo DRS, Northrop Grumman and Embraer centers in the south of the Space Coast, while Boeing and Lockheed Martin house headquarter offices on its north side (EDC of Florida's Space Coast). The same profile names L3Harris as the largest employer in the industry, with its main headquarters in Melbourne.

Figures in the table come from Schedule 16 of the City of Melbourne fiscal year 2025 financial report, which takes counts from the city Revenue Department and the companies themselves (City of Melbourne ACFR 2025). The report notes that Rockwell Collins was bought by UTC on November 27, 2018 and renamed Collins Aerospace, and that Harris Corporation and L3 merged on June 29, 2019.

Brevard County, which includes Melbourne, had 10,341 jobs at 43 aerospace product and parts manufacturing establishments in March 2026, according to the federal Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (BLS QCEW, Brevard County).

That industry group (NAICS 3364) paid an average weekly wage of $2,948 in the first quarter of 2026, close to double the $1,522 average for all private jobs in Brevard County (BLS QCEW). March 2026 employment was 1,187 jobs, or 13.0 percent, higher than a year earlier. The location quotient, which compares an industry's share of local jobs with its share nationally, was about 11, meaning aerospace manufacturing makes up roughly eleven times as large a share of Brevard County employment as it does across the United States.

The largest published detail line in Brevard County is guided missile and space vehicle manufacturing (NAICS 336414), with 8,297 jobs at 18 establishments in March 2026; BLS withholds two small lines to protect individual employers (BLS QCEW). Other aircraft parts and auxiliary equipment had 1,185 jobs at 10 establishments in March 2026, while aircraft manufacturing proper showed just 55 jobs at 6 establishments, a reminder that BLS codes each workplace by its main activity rather than by the finished product it supports. The county figure also covers plants outside Melbourne city limits, so the city principal employers list above is the better guide to who employs people inside Melbourne itself.

Melbourne Orlando International Airport is the center of the industry because its properties are home to more than 60 tenants in the aerospace, defense and manufacturing industries (Melbourne Orlando International Airport).

The airport has three runways, the longest 10,181 feet, a 246,000 square foot terminal with nine gates and a 40,000 square foot customs facility (City of Melbourne ACFR 2025). The city report says the airport has attracted new aerospace tenants and accommodated expansion plans for existing ones. The Melbourne Airport Authority is the largest property taxpayer in the city, with $199,534,446 in taxable assessed value in 2025, 2.24 percent of the citywide total, up from $114,170,840 in 2016.

A 2023 Florida Department of Transportation study, cited by the airport, credits MLB and its tenants with more than $3.1 billion a year for the Space Coast economy (MLB). The airport counts a daily population of more than 20,000 people on its campus, and it takes inquiries at 321-723-6227 (MLB business opportunities). The airport itself had 62 full-time equivalent staff in fiscal year 2025 (City of Melbourne ACFR 2025).

Embraer opened a 236,000 square foot operation at Melbourne Orlando International Airport in June 2016 for the assembly, painting and delivery of the Legacy 450 and Legacy 500 executive jets (EDC of Florida's Space Coast, 2016).

According to the Space Coast EDC, Embraer first chose Brevard County in 2008 for its first U.S. manufacturing and customer design facility, and the 2016 project was its third facility expansion at the Melbourne airport (EDC). The 2016 buildings are an assembly hangar, a paint facility, a completion center and flight preparation facility, and a dedicated delivery center. At the opening the company planned to add 600 jobs over four years, for 1,000 announced jobs in Brevard County since 2008.

Those job figures are from 2016 and have not been restated in any official source found for this guide. Embraer does not appear among the ten largest Melbourne employers in the city's fiscal year 2025 report, where the tenth place employer counts 405 people (City of Melbourne ACFR 2025), so the 2016 projections should not be read as current Melbourne headcount.

Northrop Grumman's Melbourne workforce has more than doubled since 2016, Dassault Falcon Jet is on the city list of projects completed or underway, and county aerospace employment grew 13.0 percent in the year to March 2026 (City of Melbourne ACFR 2025, BLS QCEW).

The City of Melbourne listed Dassault Falcon Jet among the office, commercial, hotel and residential projects completed or underway by the end of 2025, alongside Pineda Commons and several apartment projects (City of Melbourne ACFR 2025). The city issued 7,397 permits for projects valued at more than $524 million in 2025; new commercial permits rose 176 percent and their value 106 percent from 2024, while residential permits fell.

Northrop Grumman went from 2,894 Melbourne employees and second place in 2016 to 6,818 and first place in 2025, ahead of the School Board of Brevard County. Over the same years L3Harris fell from 2,532 to 1,778 Melbourne employees and Rockwell Collins went from 1,467 to 1,411 (ACFR Schedule 16). One practical caution: the local unemployment rate in the same report rose from 3.7 percent to 4.5 percent at the end of fiscal year 2025, so hiring is not uniform across employers.

Florida Tech's College of Aeronautics in Melbourne trains pilots and other aviation professionals, with four undergraduate programs accredited by the Aviation Accreditation Board International (Florida Tech College of Aeronautics).

Aspiring pilots at Florida Tech start flight training in their first semester at the Emil Buehler Center for Aviation Training and Research, and the university's address is 150 W. University Blvd., Melbourne, phone (321) 674-8000 (Florida Tech). The Florida Institute of Technology is also the third largest employer in the city with 2,510 employees in 2025 (City of Melbourne ACFR 2025).

The airport cites Florida Tech as a steady source of candidates for its aerospace tenants (MLB business opportunities), and the Space Coast EDC reports that Brevard manufacturing jobs rose 19 percent since 2001 while the national count fell 28 percent (EDC industry profile). The Melbourne guides to aerospace, defense and space technology cover the launch and defense side of the same Space Coast workforce. Last verified: October 14, 2026, on the City of Melbourne 2025 ACFR, BLS QCEW, Melbourne Orlando International Airport, Space Coast EDC and Florida Tech pages.