Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin raised NASA lunar lander offer to $3 billion
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Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos provides the keynote address at the Air Force Association’s Annual Air, Space & Cyber Conference in Oxen Hill, MD, on September 19, 2018.
AFP | AFP | Getty Images
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin this fall raised its offer to cover NASA costs of an astronaut lunar lander by more than $1 billion, as the company battled in federal court over the agency’s award of a contract to Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
The space billionaires’ lunar lander saga — with NASA caught in the middle — began in April, when SpaceX became the sole winnerContract worth $2.9 Billion to utilize Musk’s Starship Rocket for agency’s Human Landing System(HLS). Blue Origin filed a protest against NASA’s decision to use Musk’s Starship rocket for its Human Landing System (HLS) program.
An alternative version of SpaceX’s Starship Rocket for NASA’s HLS Program.
NASA
Blue Origin protested in July just days before the GAO rejected it. Bezos offered NASA to cover up to $2 billionDuring the initial two-year contract. Bezos stated that NASA was able to “remediate” the situation in an open letter. NASA didn’t respond publicly to the offer. Blue Origin sued NASA in August. The company then sweetened the deal during its court protest this autumn.
Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith increased the amount of private funding for his proposal to $2 billion, “to more than $3 billion.” Smith stated in court that his company “adds valuable competition” to NASA and will help cover NASA’s funding “shortfall”. This was what led NASA to select only one company to receive the HLS contract.
U.S. federal Judge Richard Hertling in the Court’s Opinion released Thursday explaining why Blue Origin lost the lawsuitAccording to, “Blue Origin’s efforts to hold public-relations negotiation after award is context for its bid protest are insufficient to support the finding of prejudice.”
Hertling pointed out that these post-award requests to provide funds did not exist before NASA when it awarded its contract. NASA was also under no obligation to request Blue Origin to revise its proposal in order to reduce costs.
U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled that Blue Origin’s lawsuit was ineffective because there wasn’t a “substantial chance of award”. Even if the suit had standing, “the company would lose on the merits.”
“Blue Origin asserts that it would submit an alternative proposal. But the Court finds the Court’s hypothetical proposal to be speculative, unsupported by record,” Hertling said in Hertling’s court opinion.
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