Blue Origin Shuffles Orbital Reef Staff, Partnership Sours as Company Pivots Space Station Plans

Blue Origin reassigning majority of Orbital Reef staff to other projects like moon lander and "space mobility" program.
Head of Blue Origin's Advanced Development Programs overseeing Orbital Reef plans to retire by end of year.
Partnership with Sierra Space to build Orbital Reef commercial space station has soured recently with disagreements.
Blue Origin expects to build own version of space station without Sierra Space now.
Changes not yet notified to NASA, though contract requires it. Orbital Reef one of 4 early proposals NASA helping fund.

reuters.com

Relevant topic timeline:

9/1/2023

Lawsuit alleges no due diligence in Amazon's Project Kuiper launch contracts to Blue Origin, ULA

Amazon and its board, including Jeff Bezos, are being sued by an institutional investor over the launch contracts awarded to Bezos' space company, Blue Origin, for Amazon's Project Kuiper mega-constellation.

9/13/2023

Musk and Bezos: The Complicated History Between Two Space Company CEOs

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, billionaire CEOs of SpaceX and Blue Origin respectively, have been engaged in an ongoing feud over the race to space, stemming from their first meeting where they found fault in each other's similar traits and have since clashed over patent disputes and thinly-pointed tweets.

9/25/2023

Blue Origin Replaces CEO Bob Smith with Former Amazon Executive Dave Limp

Blue Origin, the space exploration company owned by Jeff Bezos, will replace CEO Bob Smith with Dave Limp, an executive from Amazon, in a CEO transition beginning on January 2, 2023.