Blue Origin Bows Out of NASA Commercial Space Station Competition, Leaving Orbital Reef's Future Uncertain
Blue Origin, the space company founded by Jeff Bezos, has decided not to bid in NASA's Phase 2 competition to support the development of commercial space stations, according to SpaceNews on November 13. The move, first reported by Aviation Week, was confirmed to employees on November 13 at a company meeting led by CEO Dave Limp, with resources to be redirected toward lunar transportation and Moon base work.
Since 2021, Blue Origin and Sierra Space have been developing Orbital Reef, a commercial station billed as a mixed-use platform in low Earth orbit for research, industry and tourism, designed to host 10 people. In December 2021, NASA awarded the project $130 million under Phase 1 of its Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destinations (CLD) program, aiming for commercial stations to take over from the International Space Station before its planned retirement around 2030.
NASA released the CLD Phase 2 solicitation on October 9, 2026, and awards are expected around April 2027. By sitting out Phase 2, Blue Origin leaves Orbital Reef without its lead partner, and Sierra Space has not publicly detailed whether it will pursue the station architecture on its own.
The resources are shifting to the Moon. Blue Origin holds a $3.4 billion NASA contract for its Blue Moon landers, the Mark 1 cargo version and the Mark 2 crewed version, supporting the Artemis program and a future Moon base. On November 7, NASA announced a package of lunar awards, with eight companies selected for a new commercial lunar payload contract worth up to $10 billion.
Other competitors remain in NASA's commercial station effort, so the post-ISS transition plan does not halt with Blue Origin's exit, but losing a headline contractor raises the uncertainty around a seamless handover near 2030.
(Source: SpaceNews)
Source: SpaceNews
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：Sierra Space 的 LIFE 充气式居住舱原型 2021 年在 NASA Kennedy 航天中心空间站处理设施内展示，该舱段是 Orbital Reef 商业空间站的核心组成部分。NASA 官方照片、公共领域，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Sierra Space's LIFE inflatable habitat prototype inside the Space Station Processing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in 2021; LIFE is a core element of the Orbital Reef commercial station. NASA photo, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
