Thread by @thesheetztweetz

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims releases its opinion on the Blue Origin HLS lawsuit ruling, saying that the company "does not have standing because it did not have a substantial chance of award" and, even if it did have standing, "it would lose on merits:"

This opinion is the context to the judge's ruling in Blue Origin's lawsuit earlier this month:

The administrative record for this case was 135,000 pages, and Blue Origin argued that still "documents were missing."

While the proposed milestone payments are redacted, the court notes that Blue Origin's lunar lander proposal asked for "more than triple" the ~$345 million that NASA said would be available for fiscal year 2021 – meaning the company asked for about $1 billion in the first year.

The court discloses that, during oral arguments last month, Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith raised the $2 billion private funding offer (made by Jeff Bezos to NASA in July) to "over $3 billion."

The court dismissed Blue Origin's allegation that NASA waived flight readiness reviews for SpaceX on the grounds that Blue Origin "could have not have benefited from a similar waiver" because the company "had not proposed any supporting spacecraft."

The court calls out Blue Origin for pivoting after the GAO decision, as the company said it would have submitted a more affordable single-element integrated lander like Starship that utilized similar strategy ("a large number of launches," LEO rendezvous, and a propellant depot):

Judge Hertling not pulling punches here: "Blue Origin is in the position of every disappointed bidder: Oh. That’s what the agency wanted and liked best?"

"We could have offered a better price and snazzier features and options."

Blue Origin argued NASA's expected HLS budget changed, but Judge Hertling notes that NASA was upfront about the undetermined budget and gives the company's lobbying as an example for why it should have known (with shoutouts to @SpcPlcyOnline & @chelsea_gohd):