Sina Science and Technology News on the evening of August 16, Beijing time, it is reported thatAmazonBlue Origin, the space exploration technology company owned by founder Jeff Bezos, took NASA to court today, continuing to protest NASA's award of a lucrative moon landing contract to SpaceX.
"this protest is intended to challenge NASA's illegal and improper assessment of Blue Origin's proposal," the lawyer for Blue Origin said in a filing with the U.S. Federal Court of claims (U.S. Court of Federal Claims). This is also the latest step in Blue Origin's attempt to overturn NASA's decision.
SpaceX isTeslaSpace Exploration Technologies, owned by CEO Elon Musk (Elon Musk), is also a competitor to Blue Origin. In April, NASA awarded SpaceX a nearly $2.9 billion contract to build a spacecraft that would send astronauts to the lunar surface as early as 2024.
NASA initially said it was interested in awarding contracts to several suppliers. But in the end, NASA said it would sign a contract with only one supplier because of budget constraints. Compared with other companies, SpaceX's offer is much cheaper.
Blue Origin, on the other hand, expressed dissatisfaction, saying that NASA went against the intention of using multiple suppliers and failed to give other companies the opportunity to re-evaluate their bidding costs. Subsequently, Blue Origin filed a lawsuit with the Government Accountability Office, a US government regulator, hoping to overturn NASA's decision.
But earlier this month, the Government Accountability Office rejected Blue Origin's complaint, saying NASA did not violate procurement laws or regulations. "the NASA announcement has stated that the number of suppliers awarded the contract depends on the amount of money available for the project," the Government Accountability Office said in a statement. Moreover, the announcement also gives NASA the right to grant multiple suppliers, exclusive suppliers and not to any suppliers. "
Apparently, the decision of the Government Accountability Office dealt another blow to Bezos's ambitions to create an important space exploration technology. Previously, Blue Origin had encountered long delays in producing its own suborbital rockets to compete with SpaceX.
To this end, Blue Origin continues to appeal to the United States Federal Court of claims today. Along with the appeal, Blue Origin is stepping up its public relations campaign against NASA's use of SpaceX's "Starship" to send astronauts to the moon. In a series of documents, Blue Origin lists many of the challenges facing SpaceX.
In addition, Blue Origin also threw an olive branch to NASA. A few days ago, Bezos wrote to NASA director Bill Nelson (Bill Nelson) offering to pay NASA billions of dollars in exchange for a contract to develop the lunar lander.