Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Blue Origin strongly criticized NASA’s decision to choose SpaceX on a contract to build vehicles to land astronauts on the Moon. The criticism was poured by Jeff Bezos’ company in an infographic on its official website.
The company says SpaceX is using the Starship to transport NASA astronauts to the Moon in a “complex and high-risk” approach. Blue Origin cites criticism from a NASA official when evaluating Starship for its Moon landing program.
“There is an unprecedented amount of technology, development and operations by Starship to land on the Moon,” Blue Origin wrote.
In addition, Blue Origin also said SpaceX’s Texas-owned facility has never conducted an orbital launch. But in fact Elon Musk’s company has carried out more than 100 successful orbital launches with Falcon-9 rockets while Blue Origin has not yet reached orbit at all.
SpaceX is also rumored to be in final preparations for Starship’s first orbital launch attempt. After launching and landing the Starship prototype at high altitude in May.
According to Blue Origin, SpaceX will need more than 10 launches of the Starship to land once on the Moon and will need to be refueled in orbit. “A process that has never been done before,” said the company.
Previously, Blue Origin also stated that NASA’s decision was wrong by appointing a contractor on a mission to the Moon. Then he repeated his earlier criticism by saying NASA was ‘running an inconsistent and unfair competition’.
“NASA executed a flawed acquisition and ignored the risks of the one-provider model,” said Blue Origin.
NASA has clearly denied the allegations. The program’s congressional watchdog said NASA did not run inconsistent and unfair competition.
Meanwhile, on Friday (30/7/2021), the US Government Accountability Office denied Blue Origin’s protest. It is known that NASA awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract for the Human Landing System (HLS) program.
The company expressed its desire for NASA to award a second contract under the original program acquisition structure. But the space agency said it would offer future contracts under the LHLS through the Lunar Exploration Transportation Services award, expecting the contract to cost around $45 million.
(roy/roy)
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