Ilon Musk and NASA did not share Jupiter: businessman protested

Ilon Musk first complained to NASA for a lost tender to launch. SpaceX demands to explain why a competitor’s rocket was chosen for the scientific mission if the Mask’s rocket is one third cheaper.

Фото: Depositphotos

The SpaceX corporation of the American billionaire Elon Musk has started an unusual lawsuit, which draws attention to the way in which government funds are distributed in the United States for the space industry, and specifically for spacecraft launches in the interests of the state, writes “BBC«.

SpaceX decided to appeal the decision of NASA, its main customer, which for some reason she did not understand, transferred the contract to launch the interplanetary mission to its long-time competitor, and for much more money.

It is about launch mission lucywhich will be sent to the so-called Trojan asteroids of Jupiter in October 2021 of the year. 31 January announced at NASA that the tender for the launch of the device was won by SpaceX’s longtime competitor - a consortium of ULA, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

At the same time, the launch itself and “other mission-related costs” are estimated at $ 148,3 million. The launch will be carried out using the Atlas 5 401 rocket configuration.

“Nothing is more pleasant for us than the fact that NASA chose ULA to launch this amazing space mission,” said Tory Bruno, the executive director of ULA.

NASA spokeswoman Tracy Young confirmed that the tender was won on a competitive basis, but declined to give the number and names of the bidders.

However, as expected, another participant in the tender was SpaceX, which lost the tender, and, as the SpaceNews publication reports, protested the tender results in the American Court of Auditors. The details of the complaint are not yet clear, it is only known that the agency must decide on this matter no later than 22 in May.

It is known that after SpaceX complaints to NASA, work was suspended under a contract with ULA.

“NASA issued an order to stop work after protesting the result of the tender submitted to the Accounts Chamber. NASA always follows mission schedules, but they are not prepared to comment on cases under consideration, ”said NASA spokesman Young.

In the very SpaceX also confirmed the filing of the complaint. “Since SpaceX began to launch missions for NASA, this is the first time we have challenged the agency’s decisions,” the corporation said. - SpaceX offered an option with extremely high confidence in the success of the mission at a price well below the named amount. Therefore, we believe that the decision to pay much more than Boeing and Lockheed for the same mission does not serve the interests of the agency and the American taxpayers. ”

According to sources in the US space industry, SpaceX proposed sending a mission on the non-returnable version of the Falcon 9 rocket, which has a maximum payload. According to the publication, the key factor in choosing a launch service provider was the need to strictly meet the launch dates.

Photo: NASA

Lucy is a difficult mission in terms of the route, requiring several gravitational maneuvers to visit several asteroids. This circumstance imposes severe restrictions on the mission launch window - only 20 days in October 2021.

If for some reason the launch in this period is canceled, the mission will not take place at all. This circumstance is also referred to in the ULA.

“ULA participated in the competition for the NASA Lucy device and was honored with the fulfillment of this important scientific mission,” they said. - This interplanetary mission has an extremely narrow launch window to get on all the selected space bodies and perform all scientific tasks. If Lucy misses this window, it will not be able to take place for decades. ”

“We see that Musk is fighting for government orders, sees his own interest in this. And this well illustrates the absurdity of the allegations that are heard in Russia, including from Roscosmos, that Musk is dumping, taking advantage of access to budget money, and that Musk is almost a NASA and Pentagon project, Gazete.ru explained. Vitaly Egorov, cosmonautics popularizer.

“If you analyze the money that Musk, ULA, and other companies receive, it is clear that Musk is far from the most government-funded private citizen, and he has to compete fiercely in the domestic market, and he does not have any preferences,” says Egorov.

The exact cost of launching the Mask rocket cannot be called, but the Teslarati edition reminds that the cost of launching the Falcon 9 with the return of the first stage is $ 62 million, the launch of the GPS satellite without returning the stage (maximum carrying capacity) previously paid $ 83 million, while the most expensive ones were starts were paid $ 97 million

By choosing Space X to launch Lucy, NASA could save at least a third of the cost at launch, and make the mission itself cheaper by about 8-10 percent.

According to Yegorov, the reason for choosing ULA is that after the Space Shuttle program and the Pentagon and NASA follow the policy of “not storing eggs in one basket”. “Therefore, they will try to support everyone in order to retain the competence of all manufacturers,” Egorov said.

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