Blue Origin and Dynetics are nonetheless steaming over NASA’s choice to award just one contract — to SpaceX — to construct a Human Landing System for the Artemis program. Their protest of the choice was lately rejected, and now the Government Accountability Office’s arguments, which Blue Origin publicly questioned, can be found for all to learn. Here are just a few highlights from the point-by-point takedown of the dropping corporations’ complaints.
In case you may’t fairly keep in mind (2020 was a protracted 12 months), NASA initially chosen the three corporations talked about for early funding to conceptualize and suggest a lunar touchdown system that might put boots on the Moon in 2024. They prompt the subsequent step could be, if doable, to choose two proposals to maneuver ahead with. But when the time for awards rolled round, solely SpaceX walked away with a contract.
Dynetics and Blue Origin protested the choice individually, however on related grounds: first, NASA ought to have awarded two corporations as promised, and never doing so is dangerous and anti-competition. Second, it ought to have adjusted the phrases of the award course of when it discovered it didn’t have a lot finances to put aside for it. Third, NASA didn’t consider the proposals pretty, displaying a bias to SpaceX and in opposition to the others in varied methods.
The GAO places all of those considerations to mattress in its report — and within the course of makes Blue Origin’s follow-up grievance, that the company’s “limited jurisdiction” meant it couldn’t adequately deal with the protests, appear like the bitter grapes it’s.
One and finished
Image Credits: SpaceX
As to awarding one fairly than two corporations a contract, the reply is true there in black and white. The announcement clearly acknowledged a number of instances that the entire thing was contingent on having sufficient cash within the first place. NASA might have most well-liked , hoped, even anticipated to award two contracts, however it was very clear that it will be awarding “up to two” or “one or more” of them. After all, what if just one met the necessities and the others didn’t? Would NASA be obligated to throw cash at an unsuitable applicant? No, and that’s roughly what occurred.
From the report:
Even the place a solicitation comprises an intention to make a number of awards, now we have acknowledged that an company shouldn’t be required to take action if the end result of proposal analysis dictates that just one contract needs to be awarded. For instance, no matter an company’s intention, it can not, in making contract awards, exceed the funds accessible.
The GAO explains that the decision-making course of at NASA weighted the technical strategy the best, then worth, then administration (i.e. group, scheduling, and many others.). Each firm’s proposal was evaluated independently on every of those traits, and the ultimate outcomes have been in contrast. Here’s a top-level abstract of the rankings assigned:
Image Credits: GAO / NASA
And the report once more:
The technical strategy issue was to be extra vital than the entire evaluated worth issue, which in flip was to be extra vital than the administration strategy issue; the non-price components, when mixed, have been considerably extra vital than worth.
…Contrary to the protesters’ arguments, even assuming a comparative evaluation was required, SpaceX’s proposal seemed to be the highest-rated beneath every of the three enumerated analysis standards in addition to the bottom priced.
When the finances for NASA was finalized, it left much less for the HLS program than anticipated, and the company was compelled to make some powerful decisions. Luckily they’d a proposal that was pretty much as good or higher than the others technically (a very powerful issue), significantly higher than the others organizationally, and got here in at a really cheap price. It was a transparent option to award a contract to SpaceX.
But having finished so, NASA discovered that the cabinet was naked. Even so, Blue Origin argued that it deserved to be contacted about one way or the other making it work. Perhaps, they prompt, if NASA had…
