Teslarati by Eric Ralph 5/3/2021
Within the last week, while SpaceX has been diligently working to ready an upgraded Starship prototype for its first launch, former competitors Blue Origin and Dynetics – both of which recently lost a historic NASA Moon lander contract to SpaceX – have filed “protests” and forced the space agency to freeze work (and funds).
That means that NASA is now legally unable to use funds or resources related to its Human Lander System (HLS) program or the $2.9 billion contract it awarded SpaceX on April 16th to develop a variant of Starship to return humanity to the Moon. However, just like SpaceX has already spent a great deal of its own time and money on Starship development and – more recently – a rapid-fire series of launches, the company appears to have no intention of letting sore losers hamper its rocket factory or test campaign.
I’ve been told that Jeff Bezos is livid about this, and views overturning the HLS award as a top priority for Blue Origin.
https://t.co/RsmDzW3zSWMore:
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starship-sn15-test-flight-blue-origin-dynetics-protests/
