Jeff Bezos felt NASA was unfair in awarding SpaceX a billion-dollar contract to build a lunar landing system. So through his company Blue Origin, he launched a lawsuit. Unfortunately, the lawsuit was rejected outright by the court.
In this lawsuit, Blue Origin argued that NASA's proposal evaluation process was unlawful. "Blue Origin filed a lawsuit in the US Court of Federal Claims in an attempt to correct deficiencies in the acquisition process in NASA's Human Landing System," a Blue Origin spokesperson said.
In his ruling, judge Richard Hertling of the U.S. The Court of Federal Claims confirmed that it had rejected Blue Origin's lawsuit. NASA also welcomed this news after there were concerns that the mission to the Moon was delayed due to a lawsuit from Blue Origin.
Now, NASA's partnership with SpaceX will resume as soon as possible and they said the opportunity to work with other companies remains open.
"There is an upcoming opportunity for companies to partner with NASA in establishing a long-term human presence on the Moon in the Artemis program," NASA said.
Jeff Bezos himself expressed disappointment but also congratulated him. "This is not the decision we wanted, but we respect the court's decision and we wish NASA and SpaceX full success on this contract," he tweeted.
Elon Musk is clearly pleased with the judge's decision. As the owner of SpaceX, he has repeatedly satirized Bezos and Blue Origin.
"He (Jeff Bezos) has to put in a lot more energy to get into orbit than to file a lawsuit," Musk said in an interview with Kara Swisher at the Code Conference, as quoted by Cnet, Monday (29/9).
"Lawsuits can't get you to the Moon, no matter how good a lawyer you are," he continued attacking Jeff Bezos.
