Blue Origin loses Artemis contract lawsuit

The fact that Blue Origin, a space development company owned by Jeff Bezos, was dismissed in a Federal Claims Court against a case in which Blue Origin was excluded from consignment contracts for NASA’s Artemis project. This was reported

NASA invested in private space development companies including Blue Origin to develop the spacecraft HLS, which is responsible for the Artemis project, and selected three companies as candidates for it. HLS development cost was expected to be invested in two out of three companies, but NASA announced that it would only invest in SpaceX due to budget concerns. As a result of this announcement, Blue Origin and Dynamics filed a complaint with the U.S. Accounting Office on July 26, 2021, stating that no competitive opportunity was given.

As a result of the investigation, the Board of Audit and Inspection dismissed the Blue Origin and Dynamics complaints on July 30, and accordingly, Blue Origin filed a complaint against NASA in the Federal Claims Court on August 13. At this time, Blue Origin said that it had taken a lawsuit to correct the unfairness in the selection process for NASA’s HLS, and said that it firmly believes that the United States is an unavoidable task to ensure a successful re-landing on the moon.

On November 4, the Federal Claims Court rejected the Blue Origin claim. In the case of the judgment, it was not announced at the time of the decision, but was announced on November 14. As a result, Bezos posted a comment saying that, although not the verdict the company wanted, we respect the court ruling and that we do not intend to appeal, saying we want our contracts with NASA and SpaceX to be fulfilled. NASA also issued a statement saying it would resume work with SpaceX as soon as possible following the verdict. Related information can be found here.