The lawsuit files by Blue Origin is public, and the judge basically said “well, the terms of the contract were technically not violated, so there is no crime”, but it was highly unethical.
In brief: there were quite a few dubious claims in the reasoning behind giving SpaceX the contract, but the main reason SpaceX was granted the HLS because they were the only company who came in under the (originally undisclosed) 2.9 billion budget.
The reason for this is that the person in charge of the program at NASA, Kathy Leuders, took it upon herself to give SpaceX a call to inform them of the available budget. SpaceX then decided to amend their bid to come in just under budget, when the other parties were over budget since they didn’t get a call. She did this very briefly before quitting NASA, and I’ll give you a single guess which company now employs her.
The judge said this was fine, because the contract allowed “negotiations” with the parties. Blue Origin has offered to meet the price of SpaceX as well, but since they didn’t receive a highly unethical call too, it came in after the contract was awarded.
SpaceX has since received all the funding NASA had available, has missed every milestone in its schedule so far. So I feel fine saying they shouldn’t have been awarded the contract.
The lawsuit files by Blue Origin is public, and the judge basically said “well, the terms of the contract were technically not violated, so there is no crime”, but it was highly unethical.
In brief: there were quite a few dubious claims in the reasoning behind giving SpaceX the contract, but the main reason SpaceX was granted the HLS because they were the only company who came in under the (originally undisclosed) 2.9 billion budget.
The reason for this is that the person in charge of the program at NASA, Kathy Leuders, took it upon herself to give SpaceX a call to inform them of the available budget. SpaceX then decided to amend their bid to come in just under budget, when the other parties were over budget since they didn’t get a call. She did this very briefly before quitting NASA, and I’ll give you a single guess which company now employs her.
The judge said this was fine, because the contract allowed “negotiations” with the parties. Blue Origin has offered to meet the price of SpaceX as well, but since they didn’t receive a highly unethical call too, it came in after the contract was awarded.
SpaceX has since received all the funding NASA had available, has missed every milestone in its schedule so far. So I feel fine saying they shouldn’t have been awarded the contract.
Some reading: https://washingtontechnology.com/2021/08/was-spacexs-lunar-lander-win-a-fait-accompli/359576/