Jeff Bezos Protests NASA Chooses Artemis Project Contract To SpaceX

Space Foundation / Tom Kimmel Photography

JAKARTA - Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin space company protested NASA's decision to choose SpaceX to work on a space project to the Moon. The contract is considered too hasty.

"NASA has made a flawed acquisition of the Human Landing Systems program and moved the project plan at the last minute", wrote Blue Origin in a statement quoted by The Verge, Tuesday, April 27.

Blue Origin called NASA's decision "high risk" by eliminating opportunities for other competing manufacturers. The protest has been filed with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) since SpaceX won a NASA contract worth $ 2.9 billion.

In the protest, Blue Origin accused NASA of not taking into account other companies that had submitted proposals for a human moon landing project. Blue Origin asked GAO to recommend that NASA cancel the project contract with SpaceX and re-host the competition fairly and openly.

"The agency (NASA) favors evaluating SpaceX by minimizing significant risk in SpaceX's design and schedule while maximizing the same or similar risks in the Blue Origin proposal. Such an evaluation is absurd and prejudices Blue Origin", said the Blue Origin party.

Keep in mind, the lunar lander contract is the core of NASA's Artemis program to send astronauts back to the moon since the Apollo mission. This is a major stepping stone before further missions to reach Mars.

Last year, the US Congress allocated $ 850 million of the $ 3.3 billion NASA requested to procure a human-to-the-moon project. SpaceX's Starship rocket was chosen to work on the project, rather than Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, or Draper.