Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Beijing, Oct. 3 (Xinhua)-- Blue Origin, a space exploration technology company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, will dissolve the corporate partnership formed years ago to build a commercial space station, reassign staff and change leadership to adapt to more urgent priorities, according to people familiar with the matter.

As early as October 2021, Blue Origin, Boeing, commercial aerospace company Sierra Space, and several other partners jointly announced plans to build and operate a commercial space station called Orbital Reef in 2030 to replace the aging International Space Station (ISS).

According to the original plan, Orbital Reef will be a "multi-purpose commercial park" in space, with multiple ports and berths for visiting spacecraft and modules, as well as various utilities. At the same time, the space station will pursue an open system architecture that allows a wide variety of people and customers to use the facilities.

But the partnership between Blue Origin and Sierra Space has recently begun to deteriorate and there are disagreements and differences among management, three people familiar with the matter said today. To that end, Blue Origin reassigned most of the staff of the private space station program Orbital Reef earlier this year. Today, these employees are involved in other projects, such as Blue Origin's new lunar lander contract with NASA.

In response, a spokesman for Blue Origin said that Sierra Space would remain a partner in the Orbitary Reef project, but declined to give more details. A spokesman for Sierra Space declined to comment.

Blue Origin is expected to continue to build its own space station without the involvement of Sierra Space, but it is not clear what the exact plan is, according to two people familiar with the matter.

A spokesman for NASA said Blue Origin did not notify NASA of any changes in the partnership as required by the contract.

The restructuring shows that it is difficult to replace the 20-year-old International Space Station with Orbital Reef. The International Space Station is the result of the joint efforts of a number of government space agencies at a cost of more than $100 billion.

Brent Sherwood, the head of the senior development project department (ADP), which manages the Orbary Reef project, plans to leave by the end of the year, according to two people familiar with the matter. Blue Origin also confirms that Sherwood will retire.

It was also reported earlier that there was a problem with the partnership, but there were no details of employee reassignment or Sherwood departure.

Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000 and has been injecting a sense of urgency into the company for a long time because some important projects face huge obstacles. Last week, Bezos told Blue Origin employees that Dave Limp, a longtime Amazon executive, would replace Blue Origin's current CEO by the end of the year.

Today, the suborbital tourism rocket New Shepard, which originated in blue, has been grounded for more than a year after an accident in 2022. At the same time, there have been more and more delays in the development of a new generation of large orbital rocket New Glenn.

With the aging International Space Station due to retire around 2030, NASA is funding Orbital Reef and three other early projects. In addition, NASA plans to increase funding for one or two space stations in 2026.

In any case, industry executives acknowledge that the 2030 deadline is tight. Some skeptics worry that the orbital market is too small to support four independent privately built space stations.

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