Amazon to provide operations, web services for planned 'Orbital Reef' space station

Amazon this week announced that it will offer major support for the planned "Orbital Reef" space station, a tourist habitat currently under development and slated to be in low-Earth orbit in less than a decade.

The retail company said in a blog post that it is currently "helping Orbital Reef reimagine networking, logistics, and communications that will be an integral part of the next space station."

Amazon Web Services "will provide the services and technology tools necessary to support how humans will live and work in space, spanning Orbital Reef engineering design to on-orbit networking and operations," the company said in the post. 

"Amazon's world-class logistics expertise will help streamline delivery and inventory management of space station supplies between Earth and the Reef," it added. 

The space station, which is being developed by Blue Origin, is projected to be “the premier mixed-use space station in low Earth orbit for commerce, research, and tourism by the end of this decade."