18 in order for the opinion to be publicly released.ĭuring the litigation, NASA’s work with SpaceX on the HLS contract was paused, but it is set to resume on Monday. The court’s ruling is now sealed since the case involves confidential information belonging to the firms, but Hertling has asked the parties to submit proposed redactions by Nov. The company’s argument, according to a redacted version of the lawsuit, focuses on establishing that NASA wrongfully awarded the contract to only SpaceX and “disregarded key flight safety criteria” in the process.īlue Origin’s allegations were denied by Hertling.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ space venture had argued that NASA gave overly wide leeway to SpaceX in advance of the contract award in April but Judge Richard Hertling of the U.S.
SpaceX was up against Blue Origin and Dynetics for what was supposed to be two contracts, but NASA only granted one due to Congress’s lower-than-expected funding for the programme.īlue Origin filed a protest with the US Government Accountability Office shortly after the judgement was made, but the GAO refused the company’s appeal in late July, prompting Bezos’ space company to accelerate its legal fight. A federal judge today rejected Blue Origin’s challenge to a 2.9 billion contract that NASA awarded to SpaceX for building the lunar lander destined to carry astronauts to the moon. SpaceX will use its Starship rocket to send astronauts to the moon’s surface for NASA’s planned Artemis missions, which will cost $2.9 billion. Musk responded to CNBC’s news on the verdict with a photo from the 1995 film “Judge Dredd” in a tweet.Īfter a competitive process, NASA awarded SpaceX the sole contract for the agency’s Human Landing System programme in April. Requests for comment on the verdict were not immediately returned by NASA or SpaceX. “Blue Origin remains fully dedicated to the Artemis program’s success,” the corporation stated. “Using NASA’s public-private partnership model to safely return astronauts to the Moon necessitates an unbiased procurement process as well as sound policy that integrates redundant systems and encourages competition. A federal judge today rejected Blue Origin’s challenge to a 2. GAO ultimately dismissed the case, concluding that NASA's evaluation of all the proposals for the mission "was reasonable and consistent with applicable procurement law, regulation, and the announcement's terms." Before GAO revealed its decision, though, Jeff Bezos wrote an open letter to NASA, telling the agency that Blue Origin is willing to waive up to $2 billion in payments in return for a fixed-price lander contract.The company’s complaint, according to a Blue Origin representative, “highlighted the major safety flaws with the Human Landing System procurement process that must yet be resolved.” Blue Origin argued that the selection process was unfair, because it wasn't given the opportunity to revise its bid like SpaceX was able to. EDT Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and Blue Origin and owner of The Washington Post. As The Verge notes, that complaint put the SpaceX contract on hold for 95 days, so this is the second time NASA and Elon Musk's company have to temporarily halt the project. By Christian Davenport Updated Novemat 1:49 p.m. However, it only received a fraction of the budget it requested for the Artemis lunar lander, which will be designed to carry human astronauts to the surface of the moon from the Orion spacecraft, and chose to forgo awarding a second contract.īezos' company first challenged the decision back in April and filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office. The agency historically works with more than one contractor for each mission to ensure that it can launch in time. "In exchange for this temporary stay of work, all parties agreed to an expedited litigation schedule that concludes on November 1st," the space agency said in a statement.īlue Origin sued NASA over its decision to award a lunar lander contract to SpaceX alone when it originally planned to award two contracts. The space agency told Reuters that it temporarily ceased all work on the project after Jeff Bezos' company Blue Origin filed a complaint against it with the US Court of Federal Claims. Judge releases redacted lunar lander lawsuit from Bezos Blue Origin against NASA-SpaceX contract The U.S Federal Court of Claims released a redacted version of the lawsuit filed in August by Jeff Bezos Blue Origin against NASA. SpaceX won't be working on its $2.9 billion lunar lander contract for a while after NASA agreed to put the project on hold.
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