The agency also said its officials would soon provide an update on the future of the Artemis program, the human landing system and the proposed return to the moon and continue working with the Biden Administration, Congress and commercial partners to provide a sustainable approach to lunar exploration.īlue Origin had proposed working as a “National Team” for the HLS program alongside frequent government contractors such as Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin to design a lunar lander specifically to service the space station, called Gateway, that NASA plans to put in orbit around the moon. “NASA is moving forward with urgency, but astronaut safety is the priority and the agency will not sacrifice the safety of the crew in the steadfast pursuit of the goal to establish a long-term presence on the Moon.” An uncrewed flight of Artemis I is on track for this year and a crewed Artemis II mission is planned for 2023. “In the face of challenges during the last year, NASA and its partners have made significant achievements to advance Artemis, including a successful hot fire test for the Space Launch System rocket. “NASA recognizes that sending American astronauts back to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo program and establishing a long-term presence on the Moon is a priority for the Biden Administration and is imperative for maintaining American leadership in space,” according to the NASA statement. The decision enables NASA and SpaceX to “establish a timeline for the first crewed landing on the moon in more than 50 years,” according to NASA. The space agency sees the GAO decision as a way to move forward with the SpaceX contract and returning humans to the moon. The Human Landing System program needs to have competition now instead of later - that’s the best solution for NASA and the best solution for our country.” The company said it was also very encouraged by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson’s comments “over the past week that reaffirm NASA’s original intent to provide simultaneous competition. We’ve been encouraged by actions in Congress to add a second provider and appropriate additional resources to NASA’s pursuit to return Americans to the Moon.” “We’ll continue to advocate for two immediate providers as we believe it is the right solution. “We stand firm in our belief that there were fundamental issues with NASA’s decision, but the GAO wasn’t able to address them due to their limited jurisdiction,” according to a Blue Origin spokesperson. Despite this finding, the decision also concludes that the protesters could not establish any reasonable possibility of competitive prejudice arising from this limited discrepancy in the evaluation.” “Finally, GAO agreed with the protesters that in one limited instance NASA waived a requirement of the announcement for SpaceX. As a result, GAO denied the protest arguments that NASA acted improperly in making a single award to SpaceX.” GAO further concluded there was no requirement for NASA to engage in discussions, amend, or cancel the announcement as a result of the amount of funding available for the program. In reaching its award decision, NASA concluded that it only had sufficient funding for one contract award. “In addition, the announcement reserved the right to make multiple awards, a single award, or no award at all. “NASA’s announcement provided that the number of awards the agency would make was subject to the amount of funding available for the program,” according to the announcement. “In denying the protests, GAO first concluded that NASA did not violate procurement law or regulation when it decided to make only one award,” according to the GAO announcement.
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