By Jack Denton 

Blue Origin, the commercial space venture created by Amazon (ticker: AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos, wants to build a commercial space station with partners including Boeing by the second half of this decade.

A venture with aerospace technology company Sierra Space and backed by partners including Boeing (BOE) and Arizona State University, "Orbital Reef" is designed to be a commercially-developed and -operated space station in low Earth orbit.

Described as a "mixed use business park in space," the station plans to offer commercial, research, and tourism customers a range of services including space transportation, logistics, habitation, equipment, and crew.

"Orbital Reef will provide the essential infrastructure needed to scale economic activity and open new markets in space," Blue Origin and Sierra Space said in a statement Monday.

John Mulholland, a vice president at Boeing and program manager for the International Space Station, said that "this project does not duplicate the immensely successful and enduring ISS, but rather goes a step further to fulfill a unique position in low Earth orbit where it can serve a diverse array of companies and host non-specialist crews."

Orbital Reef marks just the latest development in the billionaire-driven private sector race to space. Alongside Bezos' Blue Origin, Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk's Space X and Virgin Galactic (SPCE) -- founded by Richard Branson -- are building out commercial spaceflight capabilities.

In September, Space X said its Inspiration4 mission was the first space flight to orbit Earth not staffed by a government-backed crew.