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SpaceX and NASA defeat Blue Origin’s Starship Moon lander lawsuit

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5 years ago

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While specific details of the decision are likely a few weeks away, the US Court of Federal Claims has denied an infamous Blue Origin lawsuit, upholding NASA’s decision to award SpaceX a contract to create a Starship-derived Moon lander.

The ruling ends almost seven months of delays explicitly caused by protests and lawsuits filed by competitors Dynetics and Blue Origin. Protests were first filed with the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) about a week after NASA announced in April 2021 that SpaceX would build the Human Landing System. Both protests were denied in July but Blue Origin ultimately chose to double down and filed a lawsuit against NASA and SpaceX in August, kicking off a process guaranteed to cause several more months of delays.

NASA’s decision to contract with SpaceX alone defied most expectations, especially when the space agency ultimately explained that SpaceX’s Starship proposal was half the price of the next best option while simultaneously offering better management and more convincing technical expertise. More importantly, rather than attempting to deliver the bare minimum specifications NASA requested from HLS bidders, SpaceX’s Starship Moon lander went above and beyond, enabling potentially revolutionary performance magnitudes better than Blue Origin or Dynetics’ offerings.

Based on their redacted GAO protests, both of which contained a litany of frivolous arguments and dubiously relevant and self-unaware jabs at SpaceX, Blue Origin and Dynetics were furious about their losses. Aside from one minor nitpick, GAO wholly denied both protests, at which point Blue Origin took the matter to federal court rather than slink home, tail between its legs. In the interim between protest filing and GAO’s decision, Blue Origin also repeatedly tried to go behind NASA’s back by having sympathetic members of Congress tack on amendments to unrelated bills that would have forced the space agency to select a second HLS lander without guaranteeing the additional funding needed to pay for it.

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Blue Origin owner and former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos even sent an unsolicited letter and proposal to NASA offering to pony up $2B of the ~$6B it requested to develop a NASA Moon lander. SpaceX, on the other hand, did what NASA’s HLS request for proposal (RFP) explicitly asked of bidders and proposed to pay half of its Starship lander development costs in its original proposal, while Blue Origin instead attempted to milk as much money from NASA as possible under the delusional premise that NASA would then negotiate for a cheaper deal (illegal under basic contracting rules).

Later on, weeks into the lawsuit, redacted court filings revealed that Blue Origin had abandoned most of the arguments it put forth in its GAO protest and was instead leading with the claim that a few minor (but potentially valid) violations of contracting rules made by NASA and SpaceX in their limited post-award negotiations. It’s now clear that the presiding judge was far from convinced by that argument, instead ruling entirely in SpaceX and NASA’s favor and upholding the space agency’s HLS procurement process.

It remains to be seen if the judge was at all swayed by any of the several arguments Blue Origin threw at the wall, something that the court’s final redacted decision will hopefully clarify when it’s released around November 18th. In the meantime, it’s unclear when exactly NASA and SpaceX will be able to finally get back to work on HLS. Prior to the court’s decision, NASA’s voluntary stay of performance – preventing collaboration with SpaceX on its HLS contract – was scheduled to expire on November 8th.

The brief decisions can be read here (PDF) and here (PDF).

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Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Tesla Roadster unveiling gets pushed again, but new event details emerge

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1 hour ago

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June 5, 2026

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Credit: Dan Burkland

Tesla has reportedly pushed the unveiling of the Roadster once again, but there are also evidently new details about the event that the company plans to show off.

The Information reported this morning that Tesla will now unveil, for the second time, the next-generation Roadster in August, a further delay from the multiple timeline that the company had previously stated.

The report has not been confirmed or denied by Tesla at any capacity.

It also states the unveiling event will take place in Texas, the same place that Tesla executives revealed in May would be the place of manufacture for the company’s highly-anticipated supercar, which boasts a top speed of over 250 MPH and 650 miles of range, according to its website.

Tesla is also expected to showcase the SpaceX package, which will be used for faster acceleration and potentially hovering capabilities, at the unveiling event, the report states. Musk has always planned for this to happen, but now it seems it is more realistic than ever

The Roadster has had its unveiling date and manufacturing date pushed back on many occasions. It was set to start production in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic crippled supply chain operations, forcing Tesla to push its timeline back considerably.

However, COVID has been over for some time, and Tesla has still not managed to successfully schedule and execute an unveiling event, which is something fans and enthusiasts, as well as those who have put down a $50,000 deposit, have been waiting for.

The vehicle was close to completion last year, but Musk truly wanted Lars Moravy and Franz von Holzhausen to push the limits of the Roadster. In July of last year, Moravy said:

“Roadster is definitely in development. We did talk about it last Sunday night. We are gearing up for a super cool demo. It’s going to be mind-blowing; We showed Elon some cool demos last week of the tech we’ve been working on, and he got a little excited.”

It is important to note two things: Tesla has not confirmed these details, and the company has regularly pushed these dates back. Until Tesla sends out formal invitations with a concrete date, taking any unveiling event reports with a grain of salt is a good idea.

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Tesla Model 3 has a tasty Supercharging incentive, but it’s ending soon

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3 hours ago

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June 5, 2026

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla is offering a tasty Supercharging incentive on certain Model 3 trims, but the company has officially put a concrete end date on it, so those interested should act fast.

Tesla is offering Free Supercharging for One Year on the Model 3 Premium and Performance trims, the top two offerings of the all-electric sedan. There are three trims of the Model 3 that will have the Free Supercharging offer attached:

  • Premium Rear-Wheel-Drive – $42,490
  • Premium All-Wheel-Drive – $47,490
  • Performance – $54,990

Tesla has now announced that this offer will expire on June 15, giving potential buyers about ten days to take advantage of the incentive.

This could be an additional incentive for car buyers to transition to electric vehicles. Many states are showing gas prices well over $4 per gallon, with the national average currently sitting at $4.22, according to AAA.

Tesla Model 3 wins Edmunds’ Best EV of 2026 award

A free year of Supercharging miles would allow people to charge and travel for free, other than routine maintenance, which is already incredibly cheap compared to a gas car.

At Tesla Superchargers, peak rates, meaning prices between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m., average between $0.45 and $0.60. One year of driving at an average of 12,000 miles would cost between $1,000 and $1,500 at $0.50 per kWh. It’s a pretty good deal.

Supercharging prices have also increased recently:

Tesla has used Free Supercharging to move units in the past, and it’s a great strategy for those who plan to use the car for longer commutes, cross-country drives, or do not have reliable access to home charging.

It should be noted that Tesla recommends that Supercharging be used at a minimum to preserve the life of the battery, as fast-charging is more stressful on the cells.

However, some people might not have an option, so the Free Supercharging incentive could truly be a great reason for many people to charge their cars.

The Supercharging incentive is short-term, and it is pretty rare that Tesla utilizes it, so once this offer is gone, we probably will not see it on the Model 3 for some time.

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Ferrari CEO’s self-driving stance echoes Elon Musk’s — sort of

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4 hours ago

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June 5, 2026

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Credit: Tesla | Ferrari

Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna revealed that the Italian automaker’s future will not involve self-driving, a point that echoes that of Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s — sort of.

You might be thinking, “Are you insane? Musk has been so incredibly hellbent on delivering self-driving vehicles to the public, so much so that he has even hinted that Tesla won’t need the ever-popular and widely-requested Model Y L in the U.S.”

However, when it comes to electric supercars with high-performance specs and lofty price tags, Vigna’s stance is exactly what Musk wants for Tesla’s own hypercar project, the Tesla Roadster.

In a new interview with Australian media outlet Drive, Vigna made it clear that Ferrari’s ambitions for the future do not involve autonomy, simply because the company’s cars are not designed for anything but manual, spirited driving.

He said:

“We will not make fully autonomous cars — loud and clear. We want the people to have fun, not the [computer] chips. We want to have a steering wheel and a man or a woman behind the steering wheel. Otherwise, why do you buy a Ferrari?”

This seems to be a reasonable assertion. Ferraris are not made for daily commutes, cross-country road trips, or bumper-to-bumper traffic. They’re made for fast, spirited driving, and many of their buyers will only put a few thousand miles on them throughout their lifetime. True, exciting, fun driving is meant to be done manually.

That is not to say Full Self-Driving or other semi-autonomous suites are not “fun,” but they are meant to take the stress out of driving. They are made for the daily commutes, the rush hour traffic, and the parking lots and garages. It’s made to take the stress out of driving.

Tesla Full Self-Driving attempts 150-mile stress test: the good and the bad

Musk had stated in an interview in early 2026 that the Roadster would also be geared toward fun, manually-controlled driving. On the Moonshots podcast with Peter Diamandis, Musk said about the Roadster:

“This is not a…safety is not the main goal. If you buy a Ferrari, safety is not the number one goal. I say, if safety is your number one goal, do not buy the Roadster…We’ll aspire not to kill anyone in this car. It’ll be the best of the last of the human-driven cars. The best of the last.”

There are cars out there that simply are meant to be driven by humans, and Ferraris and Roadsters are a few of them. Ferrari has no true advantage in developing self-driving; their cars sell at low volumes with high price tags, and their performance specs and engineering are all geared toward spirited driving.

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