The U.S. Government Accountability Office on Friday struck down Blue Origin's protests over SpaceX's $2.9 billion lunar lander contract from NASA.
Blue Origin, the Kent, Washington-based space company founded by Jeff Bezos, argued that NASA unfairly strayed from its initial plan to award multiple contracts for astronaut landing systems on the moon.
A statement from GAO attorney Kenneth Patton laid out why NASA ultimately chose to give Elon Musk's SpaceX the sole contract, saying the agency ultimately lacked the funding to give out more than one.
"In reaching its award decision, NASA concluded that it only had sufficient funding for one contract award," Patton said. "GAO further concluded there was no requirement for NASA to engage in discussions, amend, or cancel the announcement as a result of the amount of funding available for the program. As a result, GAO denied the protest arguments that NASA acted improperly in making a single award to SpaceX."
A Blue Origin spokesperson said in a statement that the company stood "firm in our belief that there were fundamental issues with NASA’s decision, but the GAO wasn’t able to address them due to their limited jurisdiction.”
The spokesperson said Blue Origin will continue to push for two providers of the landing system, reiterating Bezos' claim that competition was necessary for the human landing system (HLS) program.
In an open letter to NASA head Bill Nelson, Bezos offered to pay for $2 billion in costs if the agency would take Blue Origin on as the second provider.
"Blue Origin will bridge the HLS budgetary funding shortfall by waiving all payments in the current and next two government fiscal years up to $2B to get the program back on track right now," Bezos said. "This offer is not a deferral, but is an outright and permanent waiver of those payments. This offer provides time for government appropriation actions to catch up."
Patton's statement did not mention Bezos' $2 billion offer.
