Billionaire Jeff Bezos desperately wants to build the new lunar module and offers a lot of money for it. But NASA is sticking to the existing contract.
Kent / Frankfurt – In the race for an order from NASA, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos suffered another defeat. At the beginning of the year, the US space agency announced the construction of a spacecraft for the next moon landing. Elon Musk and his company SpaceX were awarded the contract. Bezos, who had only announced his retirement as managing director of the online giant Amazon at the beginning of the year and since then has been more involved in his space company Blue Origin, did not want to accept NASa’s decision.
The billionaire then turned to NASA with an open letter and tried to change his mind again with a lucrative deal. He offered Nasa administrator Bill Nelson to forego payments of up to $ 2 billion over the next two years in return for the contract. In addition, his company Blue Origin officially appealed against the decision to the US audit office GOA (Government Accountability Office). The GOA has now confirmed NASA’s decision to give SpaceX from Elon Musk the sole contract for the development of the next lunar module. Despite all protests from Jeff Bezos, who considers the award to a single company to be “unfair”.
| SpaceX | Blue Origin | |
|---|---|---|
| founding | May 6, 2002 | September 8, 2000 |
| founder | Elon Musk | Jeff Bezos |
| head office | Hawthorne, California, USA | Kent, Washington, USA |
| Employees | approx. 9500 | 3500 |
Next moon landing: SpaceX receives a $ 2.9 billion contract from NASA
In April, NASA decided to award the $ 2.9 billion contract to SpaceX, rejecting an offer from Bezos’ Blue Origin, which had teamed up with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper. Originally, the space agency wanted to commission at least two private companies to build a spacecraft for the first moon landing since 1972 – an initiative called the Human Landing System (HLS). Later, however, the space agency lacked the money for a second order.
Of the $ 3.3 billion that Nasa had applied to Congress to build the lunar module, it had received only $ 850 million.
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After complaint: Nasa decision against Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin correct according to GOA
As the New York daily Daily News reports, according to the GOA, NASA’s decision is not “unfair”, but absolutely legal. “Nasa did not violate procurement law or regulations when it decided to only place one contract. The evaluation of all three proposals was reasonable and consistent with applicable procurement laws, regulations and terms of the tender, ”said Kenneth Patton, executive assistant general advisor to GAO, in a statement. The company SpaceX only prevailed with the cheapest and most extensive offer.
With the “Artemis” program, NASA wants to bring people back to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years in 2024 – including the first woman. “The decision will enable the space agency to set a schedule for the first manned landing on the moon in more than 50 years,” NASA said in a statement. (iwe)
