Jeff Bezos will build his own space station

The former Amazon boss, along with Elon Musk of SpaceX and Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic, are currently fighting to see who will have more merit in the development of modern space travel. Despite a slight deterioration in form, Jeff Bezos is not going to slow down, as evidenced by the announcement of the construction of his own space station. We don’t know many technical details about Orbital Reef yet, but the plans themselves seem ambitious.

It was announced on Blue Origin’s social networks that the station would be slightly smaller than the ISS, but it could easily accommodate up to 10 people at a time. They should be primarily tourists, but it was emphasized that research commissioned by third-party companies will also be conducted on board the Orbital Reef.The station will consist of inflatable modules, and solar panels will be responsible for its power supply. The parts needed for the construction of the facility operating at an altitude of 500 km (the ISS ceiling is 408 km) will be delivered using New Glenn rockets, which Blue Origin has been working on for several years.

The construction of Orbital Reef is scheduled to begin in the second half of this decade, and completion is expected by the end of it (by 2030), during the period when the ISS will cease operation. On the occasion of the announcement of the construction of the Blue Origin station, Sierra Space announced the creation of a small spaceship Dream Chaser, which will be responsible for delivering tourists to Orbital Reef. Interestingly, its variant adapted for cargo transportation is expected to be put into operation as early as 2022, but it is possible that this date may change.