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| Blue Origin loses its case against NASA |
Blue Origin, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has lost a lawsuit against NASA over a contract to build the space agency's human lunar lander.
The move ended a month-long government funding for Blue Origin to develop the company's Blue Moon probe for NASA.
The judge overseeing the federal judicial process, Richard Hertling, issued a brief ruling saying Blue Origin's application had been denied.
Blue Origin had hoped to join NASA's ambitious plan to return humans to the Moon called Project Artemis.
To achieve this goal, NASA is working with several airlines to build the rockets and spaceships that will help send people to the moon's surface.
An important part of the plan is to build a dedicated lunar lander that can safely transport people to and from the lunar Earth.
Before awarding the lunar module contract, NASA publicly indicated that it would select two companies to manufacture these launch vehicles in order to win a portion of the competition.
The agency narrowed the options to three companies entering the final stages, including Blue Origin, SpaceX and a company called Dynetics.
In April of this year, NASA just signed one contract with SpaceX. To everyone's surprise, the contract required $2.9 billion to develop the company's interstellar spacecraft.
NASA attributed its decision to choose one of two companies to a lack of funding for the moon landing program.
NASA has applied for $3.2 billion for this year's lunar landing program. But Congress only gave the space agency $850 million, about a quarter of what NASA had hoped for.
Meanwhile, NASA is striving to reach the surface of the Moon by 2024. It's an ambitious deadline that seems impossible on a budget.
Due to a lack of funding, NASA chooses companies that insist on recommending the cheapest option. Blue Origin has applied for $5.9 billion for the Blue Moon concept.
NASA resumes collaboration with SpaceX
Since losing the contract, Blue Origin has protested to the Government Accountability Office. But the office refused his request. The agency argued that, according to the Bureau's ruling statement, NASA reserves the right to award multiple awards, a single award, or no awards.
That summer, Bezos wrote a letter to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. Offer to build Blue Moon at a $2 billion discount over the next two years to bridge the funding gap.
And Bezos could have saved the extra money himself, he is currently the second richest person in the world. However, NASA was not impressed by this proposal.
As a last resort, Blue Origin filed a lawsuit in federal court to overturn the decision. In response to the new decision, NASA announced that the company will have the opportunity to participate in the Artemis plan in the future.
In addition to this contract, NASA said in a statement. NASA continues to work with several US companies to increase competition and commercial preparations for manned transportation to the lunar surface.
She added, "The company will soon have the opportunity to partner with NASA. This aims to establish a long-term human presence on the Moon as part of the Artemis project.
In response to the move, the company said it looked forward to continuing to work with NASA on potential future contracts. Although Bezos said the decision is not the one we want. But we respect the court's ruling. We wish NASA and SpaceX every success in ten years.