Rocket Lab filed a formal protest with the US Government Accountability Office on 11 September, challenging NASA’s decision to award Blue Origin a $700 million contract to build, launch and operate the Mars Telecommunications Network, a relay system due to be running at Mars by 2030. Blue Origin must deliver the spacecraft to NASA by 31 December 2028 under the terms of the award.
Rocket Lab said NASA’s award decision appears inconsistent with the eligibility criteria Congress mandated for the programme, and that the agency’s review of its own technical proposal was, in its words, punitive, containing incorrect assertions and conclusions. Rocket Lab had proposed an orbiter built on its Explorer spacecraft platform, launched on its own Neutron rocket or another medium to large vehicle, drawing on experience building the twin ESCAPADE probes already on their way to Mars.
The protest inverts a case from 2021, when Blue Origin challenged NASA’s decision to award SpaceX the first crewed lunar lander contract. The GAO rejected that protest after several months of review. Rocket Lab is now the company arguing a government review favoured its rival, with the same federal watchdog deciding who is right this time.
Under federal procurement law the GAO has up to 100 days to rule, meaning a decision on Rocket Lab’s challenge would not be expected before roughly mid December, well past the point most of Blue Origin’s own contractual clock has already started running. NASA has not said whether work on the Blue Origin award will continue while the protest is pending, and neither company has commented beyond its filings.
