If at first you don’t succeed, object to the process. If that doesn’t work, offer to pay to be allowed in. If that doesn’t work, go to court about it. That seems to be the battle plan Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is following in its attempt to secure the NASA Artemis lunar lander contract (the HLS, or Human Landing System) the agency awarded to SpaceX earlier this year.
Someone told Jeff Bezos ‘no’
Which, yes, does mean that Blue Origin has taken its objections to Elon Musk’s SpaceX being awarded the lunar lander contract to the courtroom. A suit was filed in the Court of Federal Claims arguing that NASA failed to properly evaluate Blue Origin’s $5.9 billion Human Landing System proposal, leading them to adopt SpaceX’s $2.9 billion one.
We’re being a little facetious by listing the difference in the proposed price of each proposal, but not much. To date, Jeff Bezos’ space company has done little more than test a few rockets and send its founder to space, while SpaceX has performed more than 120 successful orbital launches and approached NASA with a cheaper bid.
Initially, the HLS was supposed to have two systems designed, but the second (which might well have been Blue Origin) was dropped due to a lack of funding. Despite this, this company says that it has “..filed suit in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in an attempt to remedy the flaws in the acquisition process found in NASA’s Human Landing System.”
“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.”
Why not drop the whole thing? Ars Technica last week published a very interesting rundown of how SpaceX got its commercial start, by registering a very similar protest to the one that Jeff Bezos’ company is now conducting. Blue Origin’s reason for objecting — that of favouritism — is even the same as the one SpaceX used in 2004. The problem is that the company is up against the competition system established as a result of SpaceX’s objection — which is likely why they’ve now resorted to the courtroom, even if it slows down NASA return to the moon.
Source: SpaceNews
