Blue Origin Lawsuit Dismissed by Federal Court of Claims
The Federal Court of Claims has dismissed the Blue Origin lawsuit against NASA and SpaceX over the agency's Human Landing System award.
"Not the decision we wanted, but we respect the court’s judgment, and wish full success for NASA and SpaceX on the contract."
Jeff Bezos via Twitter
A $2.9 billion contract was awarded to Elon Musk's company in April to build the HLS based on the SpaceX Starship spacecraft. Blue Origin originally protested the award, saying NASA had not followed its own procurement procedures, but that protest was denied by the General Accountability Office (GAO). Blue Origin then filed the lawsuit in an effort to force NASA to reopen the procurement process.
According to court documents, Blue Origin held in filing its suit that "NASA inexplicably disregarded key flight safety requirements for only SpaceX, in order to select and make an award to a SpaceX proposal that was assessed as tremendously high risk and immensely complex, even before the waiver of safety requirements."
The suit went on to say that NASA's decision to select SpaceX's "deficient proposal for initial, conditional award was irrational and in direct violation of the Solicitation's ground rules, stating 'Offerers are hearby notified that proposals evaluated as having one or more deficiencies are unawardable'."
Federal Court of Claims judge Richard A. Hertling dismissed the suit, and will release the opinion publicly on November 18th.
In a statement, NASA said it had been notified of the dismissal of the Blue Origin lawsuit, saying the agency will now resume work with SpaceX under the Option A contract "as soon as possible."
In addition to this contract, NASA continues working with multiple American companies to bolster competition and commercial readiness for crewed transportation to the lunar surface. There will be forthcoming opportunities for companies to partner with NASA in establishing a long-term human presence at the Moon under the agency’s Artemis program, including a call in 2022 to U.S. industry for recurring crewed lunar landing services.
In a tweet, Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said "Not the decision we wanted, but we respect the court’s judgment, and wish full success for NASA and SpaceX on the contract."
(Source: Court Documents and NASA statement. Images from file)