According to several people with knowledge of the changes, Blue Origin, the aerospace company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, expects to dissolve a corporate partnership established years ago to construct a commercial space station, reassigning staff and changing leadership as it adjusts to more pressing priorities.

According to three sources with knowledge of the situation, the business reassigned the majority of its workers on Orbital Reef, a commercial space station it had intended to construct with Sierra Space, earlier this year.

The employees left for other projects, including a closely held in-space mobility project and Blue Origin’s new NASA moon lander contract, according to the sources.

Sierra will continue to be a partner on Orbital Reef, according to a Blue Origin spokeswoman, who declined to specify in what role.

The dissolution of the Orbital Reef team demonstrates the precarious status of industry plans to construct a privately funded replacement for the two decade old International Space Station (ISS), a project that has cost more than $100 billion and involved various government space organisations.

According to two sources, Brent Sherwood, the director of Blue Origin’s Advanced Development Programmes, which is in charge of Orbital Reef, intends to quit the organisation by the end of the year. Sherwood is retiring, according to the company.

The sources requested anonymity because the adjustments have not been made public knowledge.

The collaboration was reportedly in doubt, although CNBC did not provide information on the staff changes or Sherwood’s resignation.

Bezos, who founded Amazon.com and Blue Origin in 2000, has been trying to give the business a sense of urgency as several crucial initiatives confront significant obstacles.

Bezos informed Blue Origin staff last week that longtime Amazon executive Dave Limp would take over as CEO of the company before the end of the year.

After a mishap in 2022, the company’s suborbital tourist rocket, New Shepard, has been off the ground for more than a year. The larger New Glenn rocket, which is anticipated to be a commercial workhorse and represent Blue Origin’s first and long-awaited entry into Earth’s orbit, is also experiencing growing delays.

Blue Origin and Sierra Space, a subsidiary of defence contractor Sierra Nevada Corp., announced their collaboration to establish what they refer to as a “business park in space” in 2021. Orbital Reef would serve a variety of purposes in low Earth orbit, including serving as a tourist resort, a microgravity science laboratory for businesses and government organisations.

Sierra announced a $1.4 billion series A financing round a month after the announcement. It claimed that a third of that sum would be used to pay for its contributions to Orbital Reef, an inflatable habitat that served as the design’s main area for habitation.

According to three individuals, the cooperation has recently worsened due to management disputes and fighting.

There were no comments on the issue from a Sierra Space spokesperson.

A secret “space mobility” programme to create manoeuvrable satellites was given access to some Blue Origin staff who had previously worked on Orbital Reef, according to two sources. The project is described in a job posting from 25 days ago as a “cutting-edge satellite management system, capable of operating a large constellation of vehicles with a small team.”

According to the sources, other personnel visited Blue Moon, the company’s intended astronaut moon lander. This year, Blue Origin received $3.4 billion from NASA as part of the agency’s Artemis programme for that lander. At the time, Blue Origin declared its intention to privately invest “well north” of that sum.

NASA is assisting in funding Orbital Reef and three other early ideas because the ISS is getting older and will be retired around 2030.

In 2026, the organisation intends to increase funding for one or two space station concepts.

Executives from the industry have realised how close the deadline is in 2030. Officials from the United States are concerned that retiring the ISS without a commercial station in place could give China’s government space station a significant portion of the market for research and tourism in low-Earth orbit.

Four distinct privately built space stations could hardly be supported by the orbital market, according to sceptics.

Without Sierra, Blue Origin, the partnership’s driving force, is anticipated to continue developing its own design for a space station, according to two sources, though it is not yet clear what those plans entail.

According to its contract, the corporation must notify NASA of any changes to the relationship, but it hasn’t done so, a NASA representative said.

(Adapted from Reuters.com)