Kevin Gill
Jeff Bezos's space company Blue Origin filed a lawsuit against the U.S. authorities on Friday, CNN reports. Blue Origin protests against the decision of NASA to award a contract to build a module to send people to the moon to Elon Musk's SpaceX .
Details of the lawsuit are not in the public domain because Blue Origin asked for it, CNN notes. The company said that if it fails to do so, "classified information, trade secrets and confidential financial data" could be made public, which would deal a serious blow to competition, the channel reports, citing court documents.
NASA selected SpaceX to perform the $2.89 billion contract in mid-April. Under the Artemis program, the agency plans to send two American astronauts to the moon, who will spend about a week there. SpaceX will have to develop a landing module that will take them to the surface of the satellite and back.
SpaceX won the contract from Blue Origin and defense contractor Dynetics. Both companies appealed the decision to the U.S. Chamber of Accounts, Reuters wrote. Blue Origin pointed out that NASA allowed SpaceX to make changes to the bid without giving it the same opportunity. The company also argues that the contract extends SpaceX's "monopolistic" control over space exploration.
source: cnn.com, reuters.com
Details of the lawsuit are not in the public domain because Blue Origin asked for it, CNN notes. The company said that if it fails to do so, "classified information, trade secrets and confidential financial data" could be made public, which would deal a serious blow to competition, the channel reports, citing court documents.
NASA selected SpaceX to perform the $2.89 billion contract in mid-April. Under the Artemis program, the agency plans to send two American astronauts to the moon, who will spend about a week there. SpaceX will have to develop a landing module that will take them to the surface of the satellite and back.
SpaceX won the contract from Blue Origin and defense contractor Dynetics. Both companies appealed the decision to the U.S. Chamber of Accounts, Reuters wrote. Blue Origin pointed out that NASA allowed SpaceX to make changes to the bid without giving it the same opportunity. The company also argues that the contract extends SpaceX's "monopolistic" control over space exploration.
source: cnn.com, reuters.com