(SpaceX)
A US federal court ruled on a claim filed by Blue Origin against NASA over a contract to develop a lunar lander for the Artemis program.
NASA is expected to resume work with SpaceX, which originally won a contract with its Starship project, in the near future.
The HLS (Human Landing System) should enable astronauts of the Artemis program to reach the lunar surface in 2024 and start working on it.
Previously, NASA selected 3 candidate companies for the development of the system, the competition was won by SpaceX with the Starship project.
However, Blue Origin and Dynetics then appealed the agency's decision to the US Audit Office, which led to the suspension of work on the HLS.
Soon the Audit Chamber rejected the protests of the companies, but then Blue Origin, disagreeing with this decision, filed a lawsuit in the US Federal Court, causing the work to be stopped.
On November 4, 2021, the US Federal Court ruled on the claim.
Blue Origin argued that NASA adheres to a biased procurement process that discourages competition and jeopardizes the safety of astronauts, but the court found the arguments inconclusive and dropped the case.
NASA has already been notified of the termination of the case and will resume work with SpaceX under the contract from November 8th.
Blue Origin may be able to conduct HLS work as part of the second campaign, and will also participate in the NextSTEP-2 program, doing various research on the lunar lander for Artemis.
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