Blue Origin thread.

[tater]

 

 

[RCgothic]

Simulator I'll grant.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, tater said:

 

 

Rehearsing and simulating how to drive a future, completed, flyable rocket around outside is good practice.

Good for them.

Baby steps.

Edited November 11, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[cubinator]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Rehearsing and simulating how to drive a future, completed, flyable rocket around outside is good practice.

Good for them.

Baby steps.

New Glenn will build a space station in orbit just in time to escape the dying Sun.

[Minmus Taster]

[Minmus Taster]

Also I know I'm a little late for this but:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/09/world/nasa-artemis-program-update-scn/index.html

GOODNESS FUDGING DARNIT I'M ANGRY-

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, Minmus Taster said:

Also I know I'm a little late for this but:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/09/world/nasa-artemis-program-update-scn/index.html

GOODNESS FUDGING DARNIT I'M ANGRY-

This whole thing will change the minute SX lands the second orbital Starship.

With that, there is no reason to not try to land on the moon 

[tater]

While the BO litigation might have moved the time a few months (at most), I always though 2024 was not likely. SpaceX can likely make LSS work once SS is actually flying assuming they are allowed a decent test cadence, but the real stumbling block might well be SLS scheduling. Anything discovered while testing Artemis I in flight will have to be addressed. Maybe they luck out and it works perfectly, then they have the first all-up flight (with crew), and any issues will need working after that as well. 2024 was just always overly optimistic.

[mikegarrison]

11 hours ago, tater said:

While the BO litigation might have moved the time a few months (at most), I always though 2024 was not likely. 

I'm not even sure the litigation had any effect at all. It does make a great PR excuse for sliding the timeline, though.

[Beccab]

26 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

I'm not even sure the litigation had any effect at all. It does make a great PR excuse for sliding the timeline, though.

It definitely had some effect, 7 months of no official communications, work or payments must have some impact even this early. It's certainly an excuse, but not completely made up

Edited November 13, 2021 by Beccab

[tater]

On 11/12/2021 at 1:55 PM, Minmus Taster said:

Still nothing clear on his crash. Flightaware track is ground speed (which was very low), but straight down is zero ground speed, so that says little.

 

[RCgothic]

 

Roasted.

 

Also, what the heck!?

 

 

Edited November 18, 2021 by RCgothic

[Flavio hc16]

4 hours ago, RCgothic said:

 

Roasted.

What a slam dunk!!

[mikegarrison]

5 hours ago, RCgothic said:

Also, what the heck!?

 

 

So? This makes sense to me. They studied alternatives, including one with a lot of tanking, and decided that was too high risk. So they went with another one.

Then it turned out that apparently NASA either doesn't think tanking is high risk or was willing to accept that risk. So Blue was kind of angry that they think NASA ignored the risk and went for the low cost.

I don't understand the outrage here -- IMO the messaging they put out about this being high risk is quite compatible with the fact that they ultimately choose not to go that way with their proposal.

Basically, they made a wrong guess about whether NASA was going to accept the risks of tanking or not.

[sevenperforce]

5 hours ago, RCgothic said:

Roasted.

Some interesting excerpts:

"The United States has moved to dismiss . . . under RCFC 12(b)(1) for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. . . . The defendant argues that Blue Origin does not have standing to bring its challenge because Blue Origin did not have a substantial chance of award, even assuming its allegations were true, and Blue Origin's alternative proposal is speculative."

"To establish standing under this court's bid-protest jurisdiction, a protestor must be an "interested party." The Federal Circuit has interpreted this term to require a protestor to have alleged facts, which if true, establish that it . . . possesses the requisite direct economic interest."

"[T]he court must decide whether those alleged facts show the protestor was prejudiced by the alleged errors. . . . To establish prejudice for standing purposes . . . the protestor's complaint must show that there was a substantial chance it would have received the contract award but for the alleged error."

"[E]ven assuming its allegations to be true, Blue Origin cannot establish that it would have had a substantial chance of award but for NASA's alleged errors."

Sounds familiar. I seem to recall saying something about that:

Spoiler

On 11/9/2021 at 7:32 PM, sevenperforce said:

Blue Origin is definitely objecting to "a proposed award or the award of a contract" and so the only way to challenge this rests on the first part of the sentence: "an action by an interested party." A challenge to subject matter jurisdiction is often a challenge based on standing, and so my guess is that the MTD on Rule 12(b)(1) is a challenge to BO's standing.

Here's what Blue Origin had to say in their Complaint about why they think they have standing:

"Blue Origin is an interested party with standing to pursue this protest action because it was an actual offeror for the HLS Option A Contract and was next in line for award. Thus, Blue Origin's direct economic interests are affected by the award of this contract to SpaceX. Blue Origin is prejudiced because but for NASA's erroneous and flawed evaluation actions and conduct, including waiver of a critical and mandatory solicitation requirement for SpaceX, there was a substantial chance Blue Origin would have received a contract award."

And that's where they lost. The federal court must, by law, give deference to factual determinations of the administrative agency for the purposes of evaluating questions of standing. The GAO (likely) said that the Blue Origin was NOT second in line because they did NOT qualify for the award and would NOT have received it but for the award to SpaceX, due to the limited budget authorized by Congress. Thus, Blue Origin did not have standing and so the court did not have jurisdiction under §1491.

On 11/10/2021 at 2:32 PM, sevenperforce said:

The facts established by the GAO demonstrated that Blue Origin was not second in line for the Human Landing System award and would not have received the award regardless of whether SpaceX was involved, because the National Team submitted a non-qualifying bid. Thus, EVEN IF all BO’s criticisms of SpaceX and the award process were 100% true, it still wouldn’t matter because BO lost independently of SpaceX’s involvement and so BO doesn’t have any legal right to interfere.

More from the opinion:

"The Court finds that Blue Origin does not have standing because it did not have a substantial chance of award."

"Considering the funding shortfall, even if the Court found that either NASA's evaluation of SpaceX was improper or SpaceX's proposal was unawardable, Blue Origin cannot show that it would be in a position for award. . . . NASA could not have awarded Blue Origin the contract at its proposed price or anything close to it."

"Blue Origin alleges that SpaceX's proposal was not complaint with the terms of the solicitation and unawardable. In contrast, Blue Origin alleges that its own proposal was next in line for award because it was compliant and awardable. . . . This argument is fatally flawed because NASA determined that Blue Origin's submitted proposal also was not in compliance."

The full memorandum opinion can be read here.

Also, more details about Blue Origin's alleged, hypothetical, secret alternative plan:

"Blue Origin asserts that it too would have proposed a single-element Integrated Lander, [redacted]. This alternative design would 'take full advantage of Blue Origin's [redacted].' The details of Blue Origin's alternative approach are unclear, as is the precise nature of what Blue Origin would have proposed; Blue Origin has not submitted any contemporaneous documentary evidence to support its allegations of its alternative architecture.

"Despite Blue Origin's allegation that it has been [redacted], it would have had to start from scratch with NASA. Blue Origin's alternative proposal is purely speculative, including hypothetical pricing and hypothetical technical ratings.

"Blue Origin is in the position of every disappointed bidder: Oh. That's what the agency wanted and liked best? If we had known, we would have instead submitted a proposal that resembled the successful offer, but we could have offered a better price and snazzier features and options. Blue Origin cannot use its speculative alternative proposal to establish that it would have had a substantial chance of award but for NASA's alleged evaluation errors."

Now I want to know what the redacted part was. Were they suggesting a BE-3U lander architecture?

Finally, a little more fun.

"Even if it had standing and portions of its complaint were not waived, Blue Origin could not succeed on the merits. Bid protests are evaluated under the APA's standard of review. A court may grant relief only upon the finding that either 'the procurement official's decision lacked a rational basis' or 'the procurement procedure involved a violation of regulation or procedure.' 

"On the record before the Court . . . Blue Origin has not met its burden to show that NASA's award decision was arbitrary and capricious. The Court finds NASA's explanation to be 'a coherent and reasonable explanation' of its award decision."

 

[Meecrob]

2 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

I don't understand the outrage here

The outrage clearly is because they launched a smear campaign, then when they lost, said "oh, well actually we have one just like it!!"
 

[sevenperforce]

It’s hard to explain just how hilarious it is to see this damning of a statement in a memorandum opinion….

“Blue Origin has not submitted any contemporaneous documentary evidence to support its allegations of its alternative architecture.”

[mikegarrison]

2 hours ago, Meecrob said:

The outrage clearly is because they launched a smear campaign, then when they lost, said "oh, well actually we have one just like it!!"

Smear campaign?

Maybe I'm just jaded a little, but this is NOTHING like the knife-fighting in the commercial airline sales campaign world. If you guys really are fans of commercial space, you need to get ready for some competitive marketing. I kind of feel like I'm listening to people attending their first MMA match and overhearing them say, "Oh my god, they are beating each other up!"

[Beccab]

56 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Smear campaign?

Maybe I'm just jaded a little, but this is NOTHING like the knife-fighting in the commercial airline sales campaign world. If you guys really are fans of commercial space, you need to get ready for some competitive marketing. I kind of feel like I'm listening to people attending their first MMA match and overhearing them say, "Oh my god, they are beating each other up!"

You are right that I know nothing of the airlines sales campaigns, but proposing a lunar lander, losing then competition, then publishing not one but two of these infographics, losing again on merits and then saying "oh, you wanted that? You should have told us, we would have given you that too" despite being unable to provide any info on this proposal (together with other shameless tactics like saying that there were missing documents when over 135,000 pages were provided). Seriously, the only info on that architecture is even less that what I could make up, they just said "we could have made a single stage lander too, and it would have been great" and no other detail. It doesn't even make much sense, they are in the national team with lockmart and NG one of which would have had no apparent contribution in this project being there no descent stage 

[mikegarrison]

Get used to it. It's called "marketing". It's what companies do when they have to compete commercially.

I understand space is new to all this commercial competition stuff, but nothing here was particularly aggressive. In many ways this was kind of tame.

Edited November 19, 2021 by mikegarrison

[Beccab]

4 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Get used to it. It's called "marketing". It's what companies do when they have to compete commercially.

Sure, but there's shameless marketing and more respectable ads. Normally, say, Ford ads talk about why the Fiesta is a good vehicle, not about why the Toyota Corolla is a product of the devil

[mikegarrison]

9 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Sure, but there's shameless marketing and more respectable ads. Normally, say, Ford ads talk about why the Fiesta is a good vehicle, not about why the Toyota Corolla is a product of the devil

Oh, that's not always true. Consider the truck market, where Ford, General Motors, and Dodge routinely make advertisements belittling their competitors.

But that's a different market space, anyway. In this business you are trying to make a few big sales and you have only a few customers. You also have very few competitors.

I don't know if you paid attention to the USAF tanker competition, but here's a little summary:

https://leehamnews.com/2021/06/22/hotr-usaf-prepares-for-new-tanker-competition-pitting-lockheed-martin-airbus-and-boeing-against-each-other/

Quote

In Rounds Two and Three KC-X competitions, it became clear very early that Boeing’s communication team was out for blood. They attacked Airbus for its illegal subsidies, for its inexperience in building tankers, for illegal subsidies, inexperience in building refueling booms, for illegal subsidies, for being French, for illegal subsidies, for tying up with Northrop, which also didn’t know anything about building tankers, for illegal subsidies, for proposing a “greenfield” assembly site in Mobile, for illegal subsidies, for the Mobile workforce being incapable of building tricycles at Christmas and for illegal subsidies.

 

[tater]

The only "market" in this case is NASA, and better arguments were already given to NASA. Well, the alternative is an end-around to Congress, and Congress is far closer to a rando consumer in terms of brainpower compared to NASA, so presumably things like that graphic are aimed at pols.

Edited November 19, 2021 by tater

[RCgothic]

The hypocrisy is running attack ads "This is ridiculously complex and unsafe!" whilst proposing simultaneously behind closed legal proceedings to do exactly the same thing.

Edited November 19, 2021 by RCgothic

[sevenperforce]

40 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

The hypocrisy is running attack ads "This is ridiculously complex and unsafe!" whilst proposing simultaneously behind closed legal proceedings to do exactly the same thing.

Agreed.

The redacted portions seem interesting. There aren’t many redactions overall in the opinion. I wonder if they were hiding a “New Armstrong” architecture.