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EspaceX remains the sole winner of NASA’s Human Landing System (HLS) contract, despite ongoing protests from Blue Origin and Dynetics.
Tuesday (August 10), the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published more information on NASA’s decision to stick with SpaceX as the sole beneficiary of the HLS contract. With the contract, the winner will develop and build the lunar lander that NASA will use to land astronauts on the moon as part of its Artemis program.
In April, Blue Origin and Dynetics filed GAO protests on contract award, citing “faulty procurement” for the program and “issues and concerns” regarding the award process. GAO denied the protests on July 30 and released the detailed justification for its decision Tuesday.
One of the main concerns raised by companies was NASA’s surprising decision to have a single supplier for the HLS contract rather than pursuing the expected plan of choosing two of the three companies (both to continue the competition and to have a back-up lander.) The companies also protested. against NASA’s decision to contact SpaceX for changes to its proposal, and not Blue Origin or Dynetics.
Related: NASA chooses SpaceX’s spacecraft to land Artemis astronauts on the moon
While the GAO has said it accepts that NASA has chosen to source as a sole source for the Human Landing System (HLS) contract, abandoning its previous plan, “we nevertheless find no basis on which support the protests because the protesters have not established any reasonable possibility of resulting competitive harm, ”GAO wrote in details of its decision, released Tuesday, Aug. 10.
GAO also argued that NASA, under the terms of the tender, was allowed to contact a company it had tentatively selected to modify the proposal. The NASA Source Selection Authority (SSA) team, led by NASA Human Spaceflight Manager Kathryn Lueders, reviewed all three proposals and made a conditional selection of SpaceX’s proposal on April 2, said the GAO.
As a result of this tentative selection of SpaceX, GAO said, the procurement process has allowed NASA “the right to negotiate any aspect of milestone payment amounts, timing and / or acceptance criteria. of a tenderer “. NASA has therefore asked the company to change its prices and add additional flight readiness exams (FRRs) for its spacecraft, both of which are authorized as part of the procurement, GAO said.
Single-source selection had not been NASA’s preference, GAO noted. SSA, as stated in its decision on the NASA website and in the GAO documentation, had wanted to “preserve a competitive environment at this stage of the HLS program”, but argued that NASA’s budget situation precluded this option.
The agency only received $ 850 million for HLS for fiscal 2021, about a quarter of NASA’s $ 3.3 billion request. “NASA’s current fiscal year budget did not even support a single Option A award,” the SSA said, referring to the HLS contract.
Turning to the competitive injury argument, GAO said competitive injury can only be proven if a requirement has not been lifted for protesters, which in this case did not happen.
“The relevant question is whether the protester would have submitted a different bid that would have had a reasonable chance of being selected for the award had he known the requirement would be waived,” GAO said. The GAO added that there was enough differentiation between the SpaceX, Blue Origin and Dynetics proposals to tip the valuation towards the price of SpaceX.
Blue Origin and SpaceX, according to the documentation, had “materially different” operational concepts for landing humans on the moon that prevented SpaceX from receiving an advantage due to the FRR modifications, GAO argued. Blue Origin aimed to meet HLS landing requirements with a single launch, while SpaceX planned multiple Starship launches in support of a landing, GAO said.
As for Dynetics, its main concern was to allege favorable treatment from SpaceX for the FRR requirement (which Blue Origin also alleged), but the GAO said it “[es] does not find that the protester’s arguments demonstrate a reasonable possibility of competitive prejudice in the circumstances of this case. “
In a footnote, the office added that it had taken into account other protests from Dynetics and Blue Origin, not all of which are covered in the document. But one of the main points raised at the time was about the amount of funding NASA received for HLS; for example the founder of Blue Origin Jeff Bezos publicly alleged that only SpaceX was asked to send a revised budget to reflect the amount of HLS money NASA received from Congress. (Bezos, a billionaire, also offered to cover the congressional deficit.)
GAO said the protests had failed “for several reasons”, primarily because the procurement was made under a Federal Acquisitions Regulation (FAR) which allows the agency to take “availability into account.” funds “in its decision.
“In any event, the protesters’ arguments are without any factual support,” continued GAO, claiming that SpaceX has outperformed the competition in the three main parameters of HLS: technical approach, price and management. “Even assuming that a benchmarking was necessary, SpaceX’s proposal appeared to score the highest under each of the three listed evaluation criteria,” GAO said.
Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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