Blue Origin’s protest against NASA-SpaceX deal declared baseless

The three billionaires who have competed for years on the largest, farthest, fastest and highest space rocket, Bezos (Blue Origin), Musk (SpaceX) and Branson (Virgin Galactic), regularly try to outdo each other. For example, after hearing about Bezos’ space flight, Branson went to space only a few days ago. Then Bezos went a few kilometers to the top with his Blue Origin missile. And Musk, who won’t go to space himself for a few weeks, but recently struck a deal with NASA to build a new lunar lander. The US space agency is paying $2,941,394,557 for this. At least that’s how much SpaceX won the bid from NASA, nearly three billion.

Blue Origin: NASA should have given us the contract too

The fact that NASA chose to ignore the Blue Origin bid has gone wrong with Bezos. That’s why Blue Origin has signed with the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) Protest against NASA. Bezos’ space company alleged that NASA was breaking the law by awarding the contract to build the lunar lander to just one company. The tender stated that NASA preferred to outsource the lunar lander construction contract to several suppliers. Absolutely normal thing in large tenders, cooperating suppliers.

Blue Origin claimed that by expressing this preference, NASA committed itself to effectively ceding the contract to multiple suppliers. When that didn’t happen, Blue Origin decided to protest it.

Government Accountability Office: NASA did not violate the law

However, the Government Accountability Office, which reviews government and government agency actions, finds the option to award the bid to two contractors not actually obligating NASA to do so after evaluating the bids.

Thus, NASA did not violate the terms of the Government Accountability Office Procurement Act or regulation.

Although the tender stated that the contract could be awarded to multiple suppliers, this would also depend on the particular budget that NASA could allocate for the contract. In addition, NASA had the option of awarding the contract to one or two external suppliers, or even none at all. Then, after reviewing the “offers” received, it turned out that the NASA budget was enough for only one resource. This does not conflict with tender laws and regulations, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Blue Origin: We are deprived

Even after the Government Accountability Office ruling, Blue Origin maintained its position that it had been disenfranchised. against Take Crunch Their spokesperson said they were particularly angry that they were not given a chance to review their proposal after it became clear that NASA only had enough budget to hire one resource. “We were denied the fact that NASA did not notify us of this new case.”

In addition, Blue Origin has already announced that they will continue to fight against what they consider to be an incorrect path. “We firmly believe that there were fundamental issues with NASA’s decision, but the Government Accountability Office has been unable to address them due to its limited jurisdiction. We will continue to advocate for two direct suppliers because we believe this is the right solution,” a Bezos Aerospace and Space Administration spokesperson said.