SpaceX CEO Elon Musk explains why Blue Origin’s Starship lawsuit makes no sense

[Elderberry]

TESLARATI by  Eric Ralph 9/23/2021

For the first time since SpaceX competitor Blue Origin took NASA to federal court after losing a Moon lander contract to Starship and a protest over that loss, unsealed documents have finally revealed the argument Jeff Bezos’ space startup is focusing on in court.

After the details broke in new court documents filed on Wednesday, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk weighed in on Twitter to offer his take on why the arguments Blue Origin has hinged its lawsuit on make very little sense.

Here's the relevant section of the SpaceX white paper refuting the claim that they won't do Flight Readiness Reviews of Starship HLS launches. It also points out that they have a track record of 130 successful orbital launches, including with crew and vital nat sec satellites.



Elon Musk
@elonmusk

Replying to

@wapodavenport

We always do flight readiness reviews! This argument makes no sense.

More: https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-elon-musk-refutes-blue-origin-starship-lawsuit/

[Elderberry]

Blue Origin Says NASA Ignored Safety For $2.9B SpaceX Deal

Law360 By Daniel Wilson 9/23/2021

https://www.law360.com/aerospace/articles/1424760/blue-origin-says-nasa-ignored-safety-for-2-9b-spacex-deal

- Blue Origin has urged the Court of Federal Claims to direct NASA to start over on a $2.94 billion NASA lunar lander contract, saying the agency should have found SpaceX's winning proposal unawardable for failing to meet crucial flight safety requirements.

Despite its typically staunch pro-safety position, NASA "inexplicably" ignored key pre-flight review requirements when it chose Space Exploration Technologies Corp.'s proposal for the agency's Human Landing System contract, a proposal its own evaluation team had said was "tremendously high risk and immensely complex," according to Blue Origin Federation LLC's Aug. 13 complaint, unsealed on Wednesday.

"NASA's decision in the HLS Option A procurement violates fundamental tenets of procurement law and is arbitrary, capricious, and irrational," Blue Origin said.

NASA had allowed SpaceX to propose only three flight readiness reviews in its technical solution despite the need for 16 space launches for various elements of the HLS, a position NASA's contracting officer had admitted was "logically inconsistent" with a solicitation requirement mandating a readiness review prior to each launch, Blue Origin said.

That failure to meet a material solicitation requirement should have made SpaceX's solicitation unawardable under the solicitation's own terms, Blue Origin argued, saying that the U.S. Government Accountability Office in a previous related protest had also found that the solicitation had required a flight readiness review before each launch.