{"id":17505,"date":"2021-08-20T00:17:06","date_gmt":"2021-08-19T16:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-agrees-to-pause-spacex-lunar-contract-until-november-after-jeff-bezos-blue-origin-files-suit\/"},"modified":"2021-08-20T00:17:06","modified_gmt":"2021-08-19T16:17:06","slug":"nasa-agrees-to-pause-spacex-lunar-contract-until-november-after-jeff-bezos-blue-origin-files-suit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-agrees-to-pause-spacex-lunar-contract-until-november-after-jeff-bezos-blue-origin-files-suit\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA agrees to pause SpaceX lunar contract until November after Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin files suit"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_615276\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-615276\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-615276\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/210416-starship-630x354.jpg\" alt=\"Starship on the moon\" width=\"630\" height=\"354\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/210416-starship-630x354.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/210416-starship-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/210416-starship.jpg 985w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-615276\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An artist\u2019s rendering shows SpaceX\u2019s Starship rocket ship on the moon. (SpaceX Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>NASA paused its contract with SpaceX to take astronauts back to the moon pending the initial outcome of a lawsuit filed by Blue Origin.<\/p>\n<p>The voluntary stay will expire on Nov. 1, two weeks after oral arguments are set to take place in the case, according to a timeline laid out Thursday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.<\/p>\n<p>Blue Origin, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos\u2019 commercial space venture, filed the complaint against the U.S. government over NASA\u2019s decision to award a $2.9 billion contract to Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX to build what would be the first lunar lander to carry astronauts to the moon since the Apollo era.<\/p>\n<p>The decision was previously the subject of a Blue Origin protest,&nbsp;which was denied by the Government Accountability Office on July 30.<\/p>\n<p>Blue Origin filed its lawsuit under seal, but the company\u2019s previous bid protest disputed NASA\u2019s decision to award a single contract.<\/p>\n<p>NASA originally had hoped to fund two of the three teams to continue work on their human landing systems, which would have provided a backup option. Agency officials cited congressional budget limits as one reason for making only one award.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An artist\u2019s rendering shows SpaceX\u2019s Starship rocket ship on the moon. (SpaceX Illustration) NASA paused its contract with SpaceX to take astronauts back to the moon pending the initial outcome of a lawsuit filed by Blue Origin. The voluntary stay will expire on Nov. 1, two weeks after oral arguments are set to take place [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[509,316],"class_list":["post-17505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-blue-origin","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17505"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17505\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}