Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin Loses Lawsuit Against NASA Over SpaceX Lunar Lander

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims rejected a lawsuit brought by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin against NASA over its lunar lander contract with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

What Happened: Earlier this year, Blue Origin, SpaceX and Dynetics were in competition for NASA's contract to build spacecraft to land the first astronauts on the moon since 1972. SpaceX was awarded a contract valued at $2.94 billion.

Blue Origin and Dynetics filed a protest in April with the U.S. Government Accountability Office regarding the contract award, arguing that NASA originally stated a preference for multiple contract awards but reneged on its initial proposal.

The GAO denied the companies’ protest in July and Bezos made a public offer to NASA to cover more than $2 billion in costs for a Blue Origin lunar lander while paying for a demonstration mission. The agency ignored the offer. 

Related Link: Is Elon Musk's SpaceX Mucking Up The Texas Ecosystem?

What Happened Next: Blue Origin filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims accusing NASA of "unlawful and improper evaluation of proposals." However, Judge Richard Hertling sided with NASA in his ruling.

Bezos, the founder and former CEO of Amazon.com AMZN, acknowledged his courtroom loss on social media by tweeting, “Not the decision we wanted, but we respect the court’s judgment, and wish full success for NASA and SpaceX on the contract.” 

Musk, the self-proclaimed “technoking” at Tesla Inc. TSLA, was more facetious in his response — he responded to a CNBC tweet on the story by a sharing a meme from the movie “Judge Dredd” that stated “You Have Been Judged!” 

Photo: Courtesy George W. Bush Presidential Center.