Government denies Blue Origin’s challenge to NASA’s lunar lander program

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty ImagesThe Government Accountability Office squashed Blue Origin’s protest over NASA’s decision to pick a single lunar lander contractor, the agency said Friday, also denying a similar protest from Dynetics. The GAO’s decision keeps Blue Origin’s rival, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the sole winner of NASA’s lucrative Moon lander program and hands a loss to Jeff Bezos, whose space company waged a months-long fight to win the same funding.
In formal protests filed in April, Bezos’ Blue Origin and defense contractor Dynetics accused NASA of running afoul of contracting law when the agency shelved their proposals and gave Musk’s SpaceX a lone $2.9 billion contract to build the country’s first human lunar lander in decades and land a crew on the Moon by…

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