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Blue Origin, the space company of former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, is suing space agency NASA over its decision to award a $2.9 billion lunar lander contract to SpaceX.
Blue Origin “challenges NASA’s illegal and inappropriate evaluation of proposals,” the company writes. The charges were filed on Monday and remain sealed behind a protective order, also write news agency Reuters and American news medium CNBC. NASA must submit a response by October 12.
Jeff Bezos’s space company escalates an ongoing conflict between the company and NASA with the indictment, with Blue Origin protesting a contract NASA gave to SpaceX to build a lunar lander. Blue Origin argues that NASA heard multiple contracts being handed out, and that NASA “acted incorrectly” by granting only one contract to SpaceX. NASA only handed out a single contract for the upcoming Human Landing System program because the budget for this was lower than expected.
Some weeks ago the US Government Accountability Office rejected an earlier protest by Blue Origin over the SpaceX lunar lander contract. That regulator argued that NASA’s decision to hand out a single contract is not illegal. Because of that protest, SpaceX was unable to begin the lunar lander project for three months while the GAO reviewed the matter. The new lawsuit may cause further delays.
Echoing the GAO’s decision, a Blue Origin spokesperson told to TechCrunch that the company still believes there are “fundamental problems” with NASA’s appointment of SpaceX. Blue Origin also stated that the GAO could not address these issues because the regulator does not have the appropriate powers to rule on them.
SpaceX and NASA have yet to comment on Blue Origin’s new lawsuit. Jeff Bezos previously offered that it would reimburse NASA’s $2 billion in costs if the space agency offered a lunar lander contract to Blue Origin, also wrote. The Wall Street Journal late last month.
Blue Origin launched its first manned spaceflight last month
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