{"id":17648,"date":"2020-08-19T17:33:34","date_gmt":"2020-08-19T09:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/despite-winning-contract-spacex-sticks-with-lawsuit-against-feds-and-rocket-rivals\/"},"modified":"2020-08-19T17:33:34","modified_gmt":"2020-08-19T09:33:34","slug":"despite-winning-contract-spacex-sticks-with-lawsuit-against-feds-and-rocket-rivals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/despite-winning-contract-spacex-sticks-with-lawsuit-against-feds-and-rocket-rivals\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite winning contract, SpaceX sticks with lawsuit against feds and rocket rivals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Falcon
An automated camera documents the Falcon Heavy rocket\u2019s first ascent from Kennedy Space Center in February 2018 with SpaceX\u2019s hangar in the foreground. (GeekWire Photo \/ Kevin Lisota)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Update:<\/strong> A federal district judge in California ruled against SpaceX and ordered its case against the Air Force to be vacated. The order was issued under seal on Sept. 24, but an Oct. 2 filing indicated that the court decided in the Air Force\u2019s favor on all of SpaceX\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n

Previously:<\/strong> In August, SpaceX said it would keep pursuing its lawsuit against the federal government as well as its rivals in the launch industry, including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture, even though it\u2019s been cleared for billions of dollars in contracts for national security space missions.<\/p>\n

Both sides in the long-running dispute laid out their positions in a notice filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Aug. 14, a week after the U.S. Space Force announced that United Launch Alliance and SpaceX were the winners in a competition for future launches.<\/p>\n

Leading up to that decision, the Air Force provided hundreds of millions of dollars in development funding for ULA as well as Blue Origin and Orbital Sciences Corp. (now part of Northrop Grumman). SpaceX was left out but protested the awards.<\/p>\n

In the August filing, SpaceX said the funding gave ULA an \u201cunwarranted advantage\u201d and called for the Space Force\u2019s Space and Missile Systems Center to \u201crectify\u201d its errors, presumably by providing more funding for SpaceX.<\/p>\n

Lawyers for the federal government and ULA said the competition for development funding was decided fairly. They said no rectification was warranted, especially considering that SpaceX proposed its Starship super-rocket for development funding but ended up offering a different launch vehicle  \u2014 a modified Falcon Heavy rocket \u2014 for the Space Force\u2019s future heavy-lift launches.<\/p>\n

The award decision calls for ULA to handle 60% of the Space Force\u2019s launch manifest in the 2022-2026 time frame, and for SpaceX to get the remaining 40%. Three classified launches have already been awarded: ULA received two contracts worth $337 million, and SpaceX received one contract worth $316 million.<\/p>\n

In the nearly two weeks since the awards, the two companies\u2019 CEOs have both registered spicy comments on Twitter. Last week, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted that \u201cit will become obvious over time that ULA is a complete waste of money.\u201d Meanwhile, in response to claims that ULA\u2019s launches cost more than SpaceX\u2019s, United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno wrote, \u201cYou might want to check the prices in that competition. The identity of the lowest price provider might surprise you\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

The Space Force\u2019s decision means that further development funding for Blue Origin\u2019s New Glenn rocket and Northrop Grumman\u2019s OmegA rocket will be cut off. Northrop Grumman\u2019s lawyers said the decision rendered SpaceX\u2019s protest moot. We\u2019ve reached out to Blue Origin for comment and will update this report with anything we hear back.<\/p>\n

Read the full filing in SpaceX v. USA v. Blue Origin et al.<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An automated camera documents the Falcon Heavy rocket\u2019s first ascent from Kennedy Space Center in February 2018 with SpaceX\u2019s hangar in the foreground. (GeekWire Photo \/ Kevin Lisota) Update: A federal district judge in California ruled against SpaceX and ordered its case against the Air Force to be vacated. The order was issued under seal […]<\/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":[509,439,554,332,316,363,750],"class_list":["post-17648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-blue-origin","tag-military","tag-northrop-grumman","tag-space-force","tag-spacex","tag-ula","tag-united-launch-alliance"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17648"}],"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=17648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17648\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}