Blue Origin Federation, LLC v. United States
21-1695 · cofc · 2021-11-18
Summary
In this Court of Federal Claims post-award bid protest, Blue Origin challenged NASA's single Human Landing System 'Option A' award to SpaceX under NASA's Artemis program, a procurement conducted under a Broad Agency Announcement as an 'other competitive procedure' under FAR 6.102(d)(2) and 35.016. The court dismissed the protest for lack of standing, finding Blue Origin had no substantial chance of award because its proposal was priced well above available funding and was itself noncompliant, and it alternatively held Blue Origin would lose on the merits because NASA's evaluation was not arbitrary or capricious. The decision confirms that the court's Section 1491(b)(1) bid-protest jurisdiction reaches BAA-based procurements and rejects the government's argument that a BAA offeror cannot challenge an award to a competitor.