No Bad Faith in Contracts to Retire NASA Shuttles

(CN) - PlanetSpace has no basis to challenge contracts that NASA awarded for a project to retire a fleet of space shuttles, the Court of Federal Claims ruled.

Judge Lawrence Block called PlanetSpace's attempts to discredit the bid process "somewhat incredibl[e]" and based on "unfounded insinuations of bad faith."

PlanetSpace was one of three bidders that applied to transport NASA cargo to the International Space Station, and it filed suit when NASA awarded contracts to Space Exploration Technologies and Orbital Sciences.

The court had dismissed four of the PlanetSpace's claims in an earlier ruling and asked NASA to explain its decision process before it considered the remaining two points.

After a NASA board concluded that PlanetSpace did not meet contractor responsibility standards, a second board found that Space Exploration Technologies offered the best mission suitability at the lowest price and PlanetSpace had the second best offer.

NASA decided that PlanetSpace's plan was too risky, however, and picked the third company, Orbital Sciences, to win the second contract.

Block found that NASA properly rationalized why it picked the two contractors over PlanetSpace.

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