Sierra Space and Blue Origin successfully complete Orbital Reef System Definition Review for a new space station built in low-Earth orbit (LEO).
The Orbital Reef team, led by partners Sierra Space and Blue Origin, has successfully completed its System Definition Review (SDR) with NASA, meaning the space station can now proceed to the design phase.
The SDR is an important program milestone to establish the functional baseline for Orbital Reef, a commercially developed, owned and operated space station to be built in low-Earth orbit (LEO). It demonstrates to NASA that the space station design is feasible and achievable while validating that the Orbital Reef system is on-track to proceed into the design phase.
The Orbital Reef team, including Amazon Supply Chain, Amazon Web Services, Arizona State University, Boeing, Genesis Engineering Solutions and Redwire Space, is maturing the design of its space station in partnership with NASA under the agency’s Commercial Low-Earth Orbit Development (CLDP) program. NASA awarded the agreement in December 2021 to shift NASA’s research and exploration activities in LEO to commercial space stations and help stimulate a growing space economy.
The SDR included an extensive review to ensure that the proposed Orbital Reef architecture is responsive to the functional and performance requirements; it examined the proposed system architecture and the flow-down to all functional elements of the Orbital Reef system. The successful SDR supported NASA’s decision to further develop the system architecture and design. Representatives from Blue Origin, Sierra Space, team members, and NASA participated in the review, conducted between mid-June and mid-July to allow in-depth review of documentation and feedback to the team.
“We are on the doorstep of the most profound industrial revolution in human history. An industrial revolution marked by the transition from the last 60 years of space exploration to a future where humanity extends our factories and cities into space. It isn’t solely about tourism – it is about unlocking the next great discoveries using the microgravity factories that we will build just 250 miles above the Earth’s surface,” said Tom Vice, CEO of Sierra Space. “The microgravity factories and services provided by Orbital Reef have the potential to revolutionize every industry and become a major growth contributor to the U.S. and world economies.”
source Sierra Space
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