Blue Origin doesn’t budge: After months of protesting NASA’s decision to select SpaceX to build its next moon landing module, Jeff Bezos’ space company announced Monday that it has filed a complaint in federal court against the US space agency.
“Blue Origin has filed a complaint with the Federal Claims Court in the United States,” a spokesperson for Blue Origin said in a statement to AFP, describing the decision as “an attempt to correct flaws in the acquisition process. NASA.”
“We firmly believe that the issues identified in this acquisition must be addressed to restore neutrality, create competition, and ensure America’s safe return to the Moon,” he continued.
NASA announced in April that it had awarded Elon Musk a project to build a Manned Lunar Landing System (HLS), for $2.9 billion.
The contenders for this call for tenders, including Blue Origin, filed a first complaint with the Congressional body responsible for controlling public accounts (GAO), believing that NASA’s evaluation process was unfair and that the space agency should have named several winners. .
But the Gendarmerie of Public Contracts rejected this complaint at the end of July, considering that NASA did not violate the applicable regulations, stressing that it retained “the right to appoint several winners, one winner or no winner.”
Blue Origin responded to the announcement by asserting that the Government Accountability Office was unable to respond to the “fundamental problems” of NASA’s decision, due to its limited jurisdiction. The company had promised to continue the fight.
NASA, through its Artemis program, aims to return American astronauts to the Moon in 2024, including the first woman.
