Billionaire Jeff Bezos‘s space company, Blue Origin, sued the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on Monday after the company claimed NASA “unlawfully” evaluated proposals from SpaceX, the brainchild of Elon Musk.
The litigation, which was filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, challenges NASA’s decision to award SpaceX an exclusive lunar lander contract worth $2.9 billion after the organization vowed to shell out two separate payouts. SpaceX, Dynetics, and Bezo’s organization were competing for the funds, and Blue Origin hoped to receive at least one.
“This bid protest challenges NASA’s unlawful and improper evaluation of proposals,” Blue Origin’s lawyers wrote in the court filing, according to NBC News.
A spokesperson for Blue Origin, which made history in July after Bezos took a ride to space, said the complaint seeks to “restore fairness” in NASA’s contracting system.
AMAZON FOUNDER JEFF BEZOS MAKES IT TO SPACE, LANDS SAFELY
“We firmly believe that the issues identified in this procurement and its outcomes must be addressed to restore fairness, create competition, and ensure a safe return to the Moon for America,” Blue Origin said.
A few weeks prior to Blue Origin’s move, the company took its grievances to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, though the bid was denied by the agency, and NASA’s decision was upheld.
In late July, Bezos wrote an open letter to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in which he lauded his company’s contract bid and suggested the agency’s move “broke the mold” and ended “meaningful competition” in space exploration.
“Our approach is designed to be sustainable for repeated lunar missions and, above all, to keep our astronauts safe,” Bezos wrote. “We created a 21st-century lunar landing system inspired by the well-characterized Apollo architecture — an architecture with many benefits. One of its important benefits is that it prioritizes safety.”
“Yet, in spite of these benefits and at the last minute, the Source Selection Official veered from the Agency’s oft-stated procurement strategy,” the business mogul added. “Instead of investing in two competing lunar landers as originally intended, the Agency chose to confer a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar head start to SpaceX. That decision broke the mold of NASA’s successful commercial space programs by putting an end to meaningful competition for years to come.”
Earlier in the week, Blue Origin lashed out against SpaceX’s design for the project, saying the technology confers “heightened risk.”
Blue Origin updated its HLS infographic about SpaceX’s Starship, saying this is “what immense complexity & heightened risk’ looks like for going back to the moon:” pic.twitter.com/QtffH8dEio
— Michael Sheetz (@thesheetztweetz) August 13, 2021
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Musk later responded: “The sad thing is that even if Santa Claus suddenly made their hardware real for free, the first thing you’d want to do is cancel it.”
SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Washington Examiner.
