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SpaceX’s Starship Moon lander under fire yet again as Blue Origin sues NASA
Less than three weeks after the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) categorically denied protests from Blue Origin and Dynetics over NASA’s decision to award SpaceX a Moon lander development contract, the former company has sued the space agency.
First reported by The Verge, Blue Origin filed its lawsuit against NASA with the US Court of Federal Claims on Monday, August 16th and continues to spout the same kind of rhetoric that GAO wholeheartedly refuted on July 30th. Namely, the office explicitly upheld the procurement process and reasoning behind NASA’s decision to award SpaceX – and SpaceX alone – a contract to develop a crewed Moon lander.
Thus far, the central argument put forth by Blue Origin and Dynetics is that NASA effectively invalidated the entire Human Landing System (HLS) “Option A” procurement when it didn’t award two HLS development contracts. Option A refers to a limited portion of the HLS program focused on funding the development of crewed Moon landers and the completion of two crucial flight tests – one uncrewed and one with NASA astronauts aboard.
Program-wise, HLS is quite similar to NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP), which began as a series of smaller contracts focused on capability demonstrations that culminated in a major competition to ferry NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS). Ultimately, NASA selected Boeing and SpaceX and the rest is now history (SpaceX flourished; Boeing floundered) and despite unsurprising delays, the program has been an extraordinary success and a financial bargain.
As part of the major Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contracts SpaceX and Boeing won, both companies were tasked with designed, building, and qualifying crewed spacecraft to NASA specifications. The centerpiece of those contracts was a pair of full-up demonstration flights to and from the ISS – one uncrewed and the other with two NASA astronauts. NASA then separately purchased “post-certification missions” – operational crew transport flights – from both companies a few years into development.
The corollaries between Commercial Crew and HLS are clear and unsurprising. However, unlike the Commercial Crew Program, NASA has been able to structure HLS with the benefits of hindsight. This time around, already faced with a Congressional funding shortfall even worse than years of half-funding that directly delayed CCtCap, NASA used a different procurement ‘vessel’ for HLS and repeatedly warned competitors that while it wanted two Moon lander providers, the ability to award two contracts would be entirely dependent on funding availability.
In other words, NASA had learned an important lesson from the Commercial Crew Program and wasn’t about to trap itself with contractual obligations that far outmatched recent Congressional funding trends. Intentionally or not, NASA structured HLS in such a way that it only awarded major Option A lander contracts after Congress had already appropriated its FY2021 funding. As it turned out, Congress ultimately provided a pathetic 25% of the full $3.4 billion NASA had requested, leaving the agency no choice but to downselect to just a single provider – SpaceX. Put simply, NASA has assumed that Congress will continue to supply just a tiny fraction of the funding it would need to develop two landers on time and SpaceX’s Starship proposal was just cheap enough to make any Option A award possible.
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The fixed-price contract will cost NASA $2.9B over four or so years – narrowly within the space agency’s reach if Congress continues to appropriate around $850M annually ($3.4B over four years). The numbers are very simple. As GAO notes, the Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) vehicle NASA used for its HLS Option A procurement also strictly allows the agency to select as many or as few proposals as it wants, including none at all. In the lead-up to proposal submission, official NASA documents repeatedly cautioned as much, warning that the agency might not even award one contract depending on funding or the quality of proposals it received.
For Blue Origin’s lawsuit to succeed, the increasingly desperate company will have to convince a federal judge that basic realities and longstanding precedents of federal procurement – not just NASA’s HLS award to SpaceX – are flawed and need to be changed. The odds of success are thus spectacularly low. However, if the presiding judge allows the case to proceed and awards Blue Origin an injunction against NASA, it could force the space agency to cease work on SpaceX’s HLS contract for months and potentially freeze SpaceX’s access to the $300M NASA recently disbursed.
Tesla has started to deploy the 2026 Summer Update to owners across its fleet, and among the biggest changes are improvements to Navigation, a new startup animation for the Model 3 and Model Y, Caraoke scoring, and new capabilities for Grok.
As the update has started making its way to some cars, we can now see a few of the features operating in real-time. We will show you what some of the new features look like in this article, along with some additional details on what changed.
Not all of the new features in the 2026 Summer Update have quite made an appearance, but some of them have, so we’ll show those here:
New Animation Screen for 3/Y
Tesla is rolling out a new startup animation for Tesla Model 3 and Model Y owners. This is present in Launch Edition and Performance Model 3 and Model Y, but other trim levels do not have anything like this.
The new animation screen on Model 3/Y with the 2026 Summer Update
Apparently color will also be customizable: pic.twitter.com/wSdwggtG3S
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 27, 2026
Owners can adjust the color associated with the startup animation to suit their preferences. It is a surprise that more automakers do not focus on this animation for their vehicles; it can be a great first impression piece and make the car immediately feel more luxurious.
Tesla has included this on more premium trims, but it is nice to see it on the Model 3 and Model Y.
Grok Improvements
Grok can now adjust more things in the car outside of the Navigation system. Now, drivers can adjust anything from climate to driving settings by simply speaking to the AI assistant in the car:
@Tesla‘s AI assistant (Grok) with its new vehicle commands in action.
Set the climate, your destination and vehicle settings all in one go! pic.twitter.com/0bBTqaAk6G
— Not a Tesla App (@NotATeslaApp) July 28, 2026
You don’t even have to push a button, either. Instead, you can just say “Hey, Grok,” if you have it enabled. That feature rolled out with the 2026 Spring Update just a few months back.
This is a great feature, especially pertinent for the Robotaxi platform, as there will be no buttons inside the Cybercab when it eventually starts giving rides to the public. It also broadens Grok’s capabilities, which were relatively limited in terms of vehicle setting adjustments beforehand.
Tesla briefly offered one Robotaxi part in its Parts Catalog for your personal car, only to remove it just a short time after it was first noticed.
Tesla’s Robotaxi camera washer apparatus was briefly available for purchase on the company’s Online Parts Catalog. The camera washer was first noticed on Model Y Robotaxi vehicles about six months ago in Austin.
🚨 Tesla looks to have installed Camera Washers on the side repeater cameras on Robotaxis in Austin
pic.twitter.com/xemRtDtlRR— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 23, 2026
First noticed by Not a Tesla App, the Camera Washer entries appeared for the new “Juniper” Model Y under a category called “Halo,” which has also now disappeared. Interestingly, Halo probably is related to Tesla’s internal “Project Halo,” which was a project that aimed to retrofit customer-owned Model Ys into functional Robotaxis.
This hardware addition would likely be required for the vehicle to operate as a Robotaxi, as the Camera Washer seems to be a non-negotiable part of the vision-based system Tesla utilizes for self-driving efforts.
However, this part has since been removed and is no longer visible on the EPC.
Now the true question lingers: Why would Tesla add this Camera Washer to the Model Y parts catalog? Is it planning to make it available for owners to utilize on their own cars for personal use, or will it become a prerequisite for Robotaxi operation in customer-owned cars?
While discussing the upgrade options for Hardware 3 vehicles during the Q1 Earnings Call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk had said that the company could establish small, satellite shops that would upgrade cameras and self-driving computers. Perhaps this same strategy could be utilized for vehicles that want to be included in Robotaxi but do not have the correct hardware.
AI4 is currently represented as capable of unsupervised self-driving, and the same was said about HW3 at one point, only for Tesla to admit last quarter that it would, unfortunately, not be possible. Perhaps AI4 vehicles might need this camera washer as a prerequisite, just as HW3 cars will need that camera and computer upgrade.
This could be the first hint of that’s where we are headed.
Tesla has started rolling out a broader change to the ride experience for its Robotaxi fleet by silencing turn signals, but the change is certainly polarizing.
Tesla has generally made it clear that its purpose-built ride-hailing platform, Robotaxi, will cater to the rider in nearly every way possible. This includes having climate preferences, music, and other personal settings loaded up in the car as the rider enters.
But Tesla is taking it a step further by muting turn signal chimes altogether, a change that appears to be a way to make the ride more peaceful:
Tesla has finally turned off the blinker/turn signal noises in their Model Y Robotaxis.
This is a small update, but will definitely be noticeable for riders. It didn’t really make much sense to leave the turn signal sound on when it’s Unsupervised. pic.twitter.com/ITwx60PAMO
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 27, 2026
However, there are a handful of people who are not thrilled about this change. Turn signals are a conditioned part of the human mind for those who ride in a car regularly.
Taking a turn without one feels strange and odd, and not hearing it click while activated could set off some alarms for riders, who might use the noise as confirmation that other drivers know of their intention to turn.
I kind of like it being on, threw me off when riding with Zoox who has had it disabled
— Dan Burkland (@DBurkland) July 27, 2026
Turn signal noises are still audible in customer cars, so if you use FSD in your personal vehicle, you will still hear the turn signal.
The move is certainly one that is unique, but not one that separates it from other ride-sharing services. In a normal car, the clicking sound confirms to the driver that the blinker is active. In a fully driverless Robotaxi, that feedback serves no purpose for passengers, other than peace of mind.
Tesla Summer Update begins rolling out: a look at the new features
Tesla briefly offered this Robotaxi part for your personal car
