Jeff Bezos' space company Blue Origin Thursday lost a lawsuit against the United States government over NASA's decision to award a $2.9 billion lunar lander contract to SpaceX, owned by rival billionaire Elon Musk.

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Judge Richard Hertling of the US Court of Federal Claims in Washington allowed NASA to carry on with the existing contract. Subsequently, the space agency, in a news release, said, "NASA will resume work with SpaceX" under the contract "as soon as possible".

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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reacted to the court order by sharing a meme on Twitter that said — “You have been judged!”

pic.twitter.com/deqktTvS3U

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2021

Based on the tweet, it is being said that Blue Origin would not appeal against the ruling.

What was the contention?

Among several bidders, including Blue Origin, NASA, in April this year, picked SpaceX to create a human-landing system under its Artemis program that could take humans to the moon for the first time after 1972. Later in August, Blue Origin filed a lawsuit claiming that NASA's decision to award the $2.9 billion contract to SpaceX was "unfair" and demonstrated "favoritism" towards SpaceX.

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It also claimed that NASA disregarded safety requirements in its decision.

"Our lawsuit with the Court of Federal Claims highlighted the important safety issues with the Human Landing System procurement process that must still be addressed," a Blue Origin spokesperson said after the recent judgment.

"Blue Origin remains deeply committed to the success of the Artemis program, and we have a broad base of activity on multiple contracts with NASA to achieve the United States' goal to return to the moon to stay," the spokesperson added.

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Blue Origin had also challenged NASA's decision to go with SpaceX at the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Bezos argued that making a single contract award was "anti-competitive" and "risky".

However, the GAO, on July 30, said that NASA’s solicitation put bidders on notice that it could make "multiple awards, a single award, or no award at all".

(Edited by : Jomy Jos Pullokaran)