Battle over NASA’s lunar contract
DECRYPTION – The choice of the US space agency, which relies on SpaceX, rather than Blue Origin or Dynetics, quickly triggered legal action from the two losers.
In April, to everyone’s surprise, NASA selected SpaceX’s Starship to allow American astronauts to once again set foot on the surface of the Moon as part of its Artemis program. A $ 2.9 billion contract that provided financial support and new legitimacy to this crazy project, until then financed entirely by SpaceX on its own funds.
Read alsoStarship, Elon Musk’s crazy new bet
According to American media, SpaceX’s offer was both more ambitious and two to four times cheaper than those of competitors, Dynetics and Blue Origin respectively. A surprise in more ways than one, because experts expected NASA to follow its initial plan, namely to reduce risks as much as possible by choosing at least two manufacturers. She did that for the International Space Station’s supply and crew change contracts.
Quickly, the two losers, Blue Origin, the company of Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, and Dynetics
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