NASA suspends HLS contract with Space X

NASA has suspended its contract with SpaceX for the landing system to take astronauts down to and back from the lunar surface. 

Two other competitors for the contract, Blue Origin and Dynetics, have filed protests with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and NASA issued the stop work order until GAO resolves the matter, Spacepolicyonline.com reports.

NASA awarded 10-month contracts to three companies one year ago today to further develop their concepts for Human Landing Systems (HLS) as part of the Artemis program to return astronauts to the lunar surface: SpaceX, Dynetics, and Blue Origin’s “National Team” that includes Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper.

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft will take crews to lunar orbit, but they will finish the journey using HLS.

Two weeks ago, NASA chose SpaceX to proceed into development, awarding it a $2.99 billion fixed price contract.  It is only for the first Artemis landing and a precursor uncrewed flight test. NASA is issuing a separate solicitation for landing systems for future missions.

On Monday, Blue Origin and Dynetics each filed protests with GAO asserting NASA’s selection process was flawed.