A federal judge ruled against Blue Origin’s lawsuit against NASA in relation to a $2.9 Billion contract SpaceX was awarded by the space agency.
Federal judge Richard Hertling of U.S. Federal Court of Claims ruled in favor of Jeff Bezos’ company. He also sided with the defense.
CNBC first reported the denial of Blue Origin’s lawsuit.
DailyMail.com reached out to Blue Origin and SpaceX with a request for comments.
Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO, responded with a Judge Dredd meme.
Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO, responded with a Judge Dredd meme.
Blue Origin filed a suit against NASA in August alleging that NASA originally intended to award multiple contracts to Blue Origin for the lunar lander.
NASA ultimately selected SpaceX, which is led by Elon Musk to be the sole provider for the $2.91billion award.
The Bezos founded company said its suit was ‘an attempt to remedy the flaws in the acquisition process found in NASA´s Human Landing System.’
Blue Origin was initially competing with SpaceX and Dynetics for two NASA contracts.
Following the lawsuit, NASA temporarily stopped work on the contract in August.
After Congress cut the budget of the space agency, NASA announced that SpaceX’s Human Landing System would be the sole contractor.
That month, Blue Origin and Alabama-based Dynetics filed a 50-page protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a congressional watchdog.
Musk responded by rolling Bezos, a multibillionaire, and tweeting that he ‘cannot get it up (to space).’
The GAO rejected Blue Origin’s and Dynetics’ protest in July. It found that ‘NASA didn’t violate procurement law or regulation when they decided to make only one award’, striking down Blue Origin’s main argument.
‘The announcement reserved the right to make multiple awards, a single award, or no award at all,’ GAO stated in a press release.
NASA reached its award decision by concluding that it had not received sufficient funding to support one contract award.
Bezos became the first billionaire to enter space in the same month as the GAO rejected his protest. He joined Mark, Wally Funk, an 82-year old space pioneer Wally Funk, 18-year-old student aboard New Shepard’s rocket ship, and his brother Mark.
After the GAO Blue Origin spokesperson said that they believed there were fundamental issues with NASA’s decision. However the GAO was unable address them due to their limited jurisdiction.
They stated that Blue Origin would ‘continue promoting two immediate providers’ as they believe it is the best solution, but not outright legal action.
‘The Human Landing System [HLS]Program must have competition now rather than later, the rep stated, “that’s the best option for NASA and the best for our country.”
Blue Moon, the lunar landing vehicle Blue Horizon was designed to develop for NASA.
Blue Origin has been working to develop its moon landing system, Blue Moon, since 2017.
Blue Origin was a Washington, DC event that Bezos held in 2019.
Blue Origin and Dynetics filed their Days After Blue Origin and Dynetics NASA protested, telling SpaceX to stop building HLMs until the GAO had made its ruling.
The July decision meant Musk could restart work on the lander, part of the larger project to land the first woman and next man on the moon.
Musk also tweeted the strong arm emoticon and the ‘GAO’ response to the General Accounting Office’s denial of a Blue Origin and Dynetics protest in July.
Musk responded to the ruling on Twitter by posting “GAO” with the “strong arm” emoji.
NASA made the initial announcement about the lunar landing contracts in April 2020. Blue Origin was awarded $579 million, Dynetics team $253million, and SpaceX $135million to develop a model of a lander.
According to Blue Origin, the space agency was expected to name two winning teams this year, with both companies receiving lucrative contracts to turn their designs into working spacecrafts.
NASA announced SpaceX as the sole company to build a lunar landing lander on April 16, 2021. It had a contract worth $2.91 Billion, which was significantly lower than Blue Origin’s $5.99 Billion bid.
According to lawyers for Blue Origin, ‘NASA had indicated an overriding intent to make two awards, but due to perceived shortfalls of currently available and anticipated future funds, it made only SpaceX the award. This effectively eliminated HLS competition and effectively locked down immediate and future lunar landing system design, launch, and landing opportunities.
SpaceX unveiled plans for its lander on April 16th. They will use the company’s Raptor engines as well as new technology that draws inspiration from Falcon and Dragon vehicle designs.
The lander will include a large cabin as well as two airlocks for astronaut moonwalks.
NASA announced in April that the Starship architecture was intended to evolve into a fully reusable launch-and-landing system for travel to Mars, the Moon, and other destinations.
Blue Origin claimed in July that NASA had’moved all the goalposts at once’ and that they had made a high risk’ selection.
The company stated that their decision “eliminates opportunities for competition”, significantly narrows the supply base, which not only delays but also threatens America’s return trip to the Moon.”
Blue Origin has been taking aim at Space X via social media. They have posted several infographics underscoring the unprecedented number technologies, developments, operations that have never been performed before for Starships to land on the Moon.’
THE BILLIONAIRE SPACE RACE: HOW BRANSON MUSK and BEZOS ARE VOTING TO GALACTIC SUPREMACY
Jeff Bezos pictured in front Blue Origin’s space capsule
Elon Musk, Sir Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and Sir Richard Branson are all part of the ‘NewSpace” set. They claim that they were inspired to do the first moon landing in 1969 by the US, which beat the Soviet Union in space race.
Amazon founder Bezos looked set to become the first to fly to space. He had announced plans to launch aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft on the 20th of July. But Branson beat him to it.
The British billionaire became Virgin Galactic Astronaut 011 when he reached space on a suborbital flight nine day before Bezos. He made it to space on July 11, in a test flight.
Bezos travelled to space on July 20 with his younger brother Mark, Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old physics student whose dad purchased his ticket, and pioneering female astronaut Wally Funk, 82.
Musk, SpaceX founder and Tesla founder, has said that he wants space travel and to even “die on Mars”, but he has not yet said when he might do so. However, he did purchase a Virgin Galactic flight ticket for a suborbital flight.
SpaceX was the first operator of’space tourism’ to send a civilian crew into orbit. The Inspiration4 mission was funded by billionaire Jared Isaacman.
Elon Musk, a billionaire who is obsessed with space, built the Dragon capsule and SpaceX rocket that took him to orbit on September 16. It was higher than the International Space Station.
SpaceX appears to be leading in the billionaire space race, with many launches carrying NASA equipment to orbit and partnerships to send tourists up to space by 2021.
On February 6 2018, SpaceX sent rocket towards the orbit of Mars, 140 million miles away, with Musk’s own red Tesla roadster attached.
Elon Musk in his Dragon Crew capsule
International Space Station, with crew from NASA, ESA and JAXA, the Japanese space agency.|International Space Station, with crew from NASA, ESA and JAXA, the Japanese space agency.
SpaceX has been sending 60 satellites into orbit in order to help create its Starlink network. It is currently in beta and provides high-speed internet to rural areas.
Virgin Galactic and Branson are taking a different approach in conquering space. It has repeatedly, and successfully, conducted test flights of the Virgin Galactic’s Unity space plane.
The first took place in December 2018 and the latest on May 22, with the flight accelerating to more than 2,000 miles per hour (Mach 2.7).
More than 600 affluent customers to date, including celebrities Brad Pitt and Katy Perry, have reserved a $250,000 (£200,000) seat on one of Virgin’s space trips. The final tickets will cost $350,000.
Branson previously stated that he expected Elon Musk to win Mars race with his private rocket company SpaceX.
Richard Branson in the Virgin Galactic craft
SpaceShipTwo can hold six passengers and two pilots. Each passenger is given the same seating position with two large windows: one to each side and one above their heads.
The spaceship measures 60 feet in length and has a cabin measuring 90 inches in diameter. This allows astronauts maximum freedom to float in zero gravity.
It climbs to 50,000ft, before the rocket engine ignites. SpaceShipTwo separates from White Knight II, its carrier craft once it has travelled 50 miles.
Passengers can be called “astronauts” once they reach the Karman boundary, the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and the Earth’s atmosphere.
The spaceship will then travel suborbitally for approximately six minutes, with an average flight time of approximately 1.5 hours.
Bezos revealed in April 2017 that he finances Blue Origin with around $1 billion (£720 million) of Amazon stock each year.
The system comprises a crew capsule with pressurized air inside, atop a reusable New Shepard rocket booster.
The capsule reached 65 mph (104 kilometres) at its peak. This was just above the official threshold of space. The capsule landed vertically seven seconds after liftoff.
Blue Origin is working on New Glenn – the next generation of heavy lift rockets that will compete with SpaceX Falcon 9.