Blue Origin, the space exploration technology company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, will dissolve a corporate partnership formed years ago to build a commercial space station, reallocating employees and changing leadership to accommodate more pressing priorities, multiple people familiar with the matter said today.

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

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

But three people familiar with the matter said today that the partnership between Blue Origin and SierraSpace has begun to deteriorate recently, with discord and disagreements between management. To that end, Blue Origin reassigned most of its Orbital Reef staff earlier this year. Today, those employees are involved in other projects, such as Blue Origin’s contract with NASA for a new lunar lander.

In response, a Blue Origin spokesperson said that SierraSpace will remain a partner in the Orbitary Reef project, but declined to disclose more detailed information. A SierraSpace spokesman declined to comment.

Two people familiar with the matter said Blue Origin is expected to continue building its own space station without the participation of SierraSpace, but it is unclear what the specific plans are.

A NASA spokesperson said Blue Origin did not notify NASA of any changes to the partnership, as required by the contract.

The reorganization shows that the plan to replace the 20-year-old International Space Station with Orbital Reef is struggling. The International Space Station is the result of the joint efforts of multiple government space agencies and costs more than $100 billion.

Two people familiar with the matter said that Brent Sherwood, the head of Blue Origin’s Advanced Development Projects Department (ADP) responsible for managing the Orbary Reef project, plans to leave before the end of this year. Blue Origin also confirmed that Sherwood will retire.

It was reported earlier that there were indeed problems with this cooperation, but there were no details about employee reassignment or Sherwood's departure.

Bezos, who founded Blue Origin in 2000, has long been injecting a sense of urgency into the company as some important projects faced significant obstacles. Last week, Bezos told Blue Origin employees that longtime Amazon executive Dave Limp would take over as Blue Origin's current CEO by the end of the year.

Now, Blue Origin's suborbital tourism rocket "New Shepard" has been grounded for more than a year after an accident in 2022. At the same time, there are increasing delays in the development of the new generation of large orbital rocket "NewGlenn".

As the aging International Space Station is set to retire around 2030, NASA is funding OrbitalReef and three other early-stage projects. In addition, NASA plans to add more funding for one or two space station programs in 2026.

Regardless, industry executives acknowledge that the 2030 deadline is tight. Skeptics also worry that the orbital market is too small to support four separate privately built space stations.