SpaceX Wins Court Judgement From Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin Dispute Of NASA Moon Lander Contract

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin loses court against NASA in awarding SpaceX with a contract to send astronauts to the moon.
The months-long epic challenging Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin of the victory of Elon Musk’s SpaceX in NASA’s competition for the development of HLS lunar landing modules for Artemis has come to an end. Federal Judge Richard Hertling, who was hearing the case, sided with NASA by rejecting Blue Origin’s claim.


In case you missed it all, here is the shortest retelling of months of conflict in two paragraphs:


Blue Origin, along with Dynetics, applied for a contract with NASA to create a lunar lander HLS (Human Landing System), but lost to SpaceX – NASA chose the Starship spacecraft for the first manned landing on the moon in the 21st century. The creation of HLS is one of the most important stages of the ambitious American lunar program “Artemis” with the resumption of manned missions and the colonization of a satellite, in which nine countries, including Ukraine, are currently participating. According to NASA’s plan, the HLS module will dock with the lunar station, land and take off from the lunar surface, as well as deliver the necessary instruments and instruments to the moon.


Attempts to negotiate with NASA on the participation of the Blue Origin lander in the Artemis lunar project in exchange for a $ 2 billion discount and challenge SpaceX’s victory in the US Audit Office (GAO) have led nowhere, apart from a myriad of jokes and memes. And then Blue Origin, in addition to dubious anti-competitive practices, filed a lawsuit against NASA in the Federal Claims Court (COFC). At the time of consideration of the claim, work on the creation of the lunar version of Starship was suspended. The decision on the case should have been made before November 1.


4 November Judge Richard Hertling handed down a short ruling, noting that Blue Origin’s motion to adjudicate in its favor was rejected. The judgment has not yet been published. All parties involved still have to submit their comments to the court, and the final text of the ruling must be published by November 14.


В Blue Origin highlighted, their lawsuit against COFC draws attention to important safety issues in the Human Landing System competition procedure that have yet to be resolved. NASA, in turn, said that in the near future, private companies will have new opportunities to cooperate with the federal agency in ensuring the long-term presence of man on the moon under the Artemis program. Recall that in September NASA announced a new competition – SpaceX, Blue Origin and three more companies will receive $ 146 million to develop lunar landing modules for Artemis.


Judging by the comment by Jeff Bezos, there will be no more new lawsuits in this case.






“Not the result we expected, but we respect the court’s decision and wish NASA and SpaceX complete success under the contract.”


The head of SpaceX, Elon Musk, reacted to the court’s decision in his usual manner – with humor. On his Twitter page, he posted a meme with Judge Dredd.