SpaceX has been easily winning the new space race. But Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture company is trying to challenge them. NASA’s award of a $2.9 billion contract to SpaceX to develop the first commercial human landing system (HLS) is turning into a billionaire battle.
Bezos Objects to NASA and SpaceX contract
Blue Origin is appealing to the Government Accountability Office with a 50-page filing (with 100 pages’ worth of attachments). The filing claims that NASA improperly favored SpaceX in the deliberations that led to a single-source award earlier this month. The GAO will have 100 days to review Blue Origin’s claim.
In the meantime, Elon Musk replied with a little space humor on Twitter, “Can’t get it up (to orbit) lol,” he wrote.
His comment was also referring to the fact that Blue Origin has yet to launch a rocket into low earth orbit. And the SpaceX multi-use design has sent astronauts to the space station and satellites into orbit on multiple occasions.
SpaceX has HLS in-development
NASA announced in early April that it has chosen Elon Musk’s SpaceX to take a new generation to the moon. NASA and SpaceX are finalizing the development of the first commercial human landing system (HLS) to touch down on the moon. NASA’s Artemis program aims to explore the Moon for a week. And SpaceX is tasked with designing a vehicle to carry two American astronauts safely to complete the lunar mission.
