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SpaceX protests NASA launch contract award
SpaceX has filed a protest over the award of a launch contract to United Launch Alliance for a NASA planetary science mission, claiming it could carry out the mission for significantly less money.
The protest, filed with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) Feb. 11, is regarding a NASA procurement formally known as RLSP-35. That contract is for the launch of the Lucy mission to the Trojan asteroids of Jupiter, awarded by NASA to ULA Jan. 31 at a total cost to the agency of $148.3 million. The GAO documents did not disclose additional information about the protest, other than the office has until May 22 to render a decision. NASA said that, as a result of the protest, it's halted work on the ULA contract.
[...] SpaceX confirmed that the company was protesting the contract. "Since SpaceX has started launching missions for NASA, this is the first time the company has challenged one of the agency's award decisions," a company spokesperson said in a statement to SpaceNews. "SpaceX offered a solution with extraordinarily high confidence of mission success at a price dramatically lower than the award amount, so we believe the decision to pay vastly more to Boeing and Lockheed for the same mission was therefore not in the best interest of the agency or the American taxpayers," the spokesperson added. ULA is a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
[...] A key factor in the decision to award the contract to ULA was schedule certainty. Lucy has a complex mission profile with a series of flybys in order to visit several asteroid either leading or following Jupiter in its orbit around the sun. That results in a launch window that is open for only about 20 days in October 2021. Should the launch miss that window, the mission cannot be flown as currently planned.
Could it be retaliation for recent audits? Still, a matter of ±$70 million or so is almost nothing compared to the billions being spent annually on the Space Launch System.
Lucy (spacecraft) and trojans.
Also at Ars Technica and Teslarati.
Previously: NASA Selects Two Missions to Visit Asteroids
(Score: 2) by eravnrekaree on Saturday February 16 2019, @03:47AM (1 child)
Their reasons for using ULA seem sound. SpaceX has shown to be reliable enough for commodity space hardware, but when you are dealing with one off craft with very specific needs and which have taken years to build, its worth it to go with the more expensive launch platform for now that has a longer track record of reliability for that extra level of assurance. Sometimes its good to be a little bit overcautious, Especially this will be true with JWT which has been in development for a decade. Over time, SpaceX will hopefully prove its reliability to launch more risky stuff. It makes sense to continue to use the older tried and tested technology for high risk stuff while developing newer technology beginning with lower risk payloads.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 16 2019, @02:33PM
I'm hoping you mean that as a joke, because for ULA to remain relevant, I believe your words badly need to be a joke.
Ultimately, reliability is measured in actual success rate, not the amount of gold plating in the process.
The process stuff began to help remember lessons learned from things like Apollo 1,
but with time it seems to have grown to move the focus from the mission to the process itself.
Time will tell if X has moved this balance too far, but there is no doubt that ULA has moved too little if at all.
Hopefully, a review of this award will provide the reflection for both to adjust.