SNC v NASA: Boeing and SpaceX Allowed to Intervene, Next Hearing Date Set

At today’s hearing before the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Boeing and SpaceX were granted their requests to intervene in Sierra Nevada Corporation’s (SNC’s) lawsuit to force NASA to reinstate a stop-work order on the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCAP) contracts. 

SNC filed suit on Wednesday asking the court to declare “illegal and void” NASA’s October 9 decision to override provisions of the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA) so that work could proceed under the CCtCAP contracts despite SNC’s protest of the award.   Today was the first hearing in the case.

Boeing, SpaceX and SNC are all being funded under the current phase of NASA’s commercial crew program — the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCAP) phase.  On September 16, NASA selected Boeing and SpaceX to continue into the next phase, CCtCAP.  Sierra Nevada filed a protest against that decision with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on September 26.   NASA issued a stop-work order to Boeing and SpaceX on the CCtCAP contracts because of the protest, but rescinded it on October 9 arguing that it was acting under its statutory authority to avoid serious adverse consequences. 

That prompted SNC to file this lawsuit against the U.S. Government on the basis that NASA had not demonstrated that it could not wait until GAO issued its ruling on SNC’s protest.  GAO has until January 5, 2015 to make its determination.

Today, Judge Marian Blank Horn granted motions from Boeing and SpaceX to “intervene” in the case and ordered that they file their submissions by Monday, October 20, at noon.  The next hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, October 21, at 2:30 pm ET.

The commercial crew program is essentially a public-private partnership where the government and the private sector are sharing the costs of developing new crew space transportation systems to take astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS) with NASA serving as a market for the resulting services.  CCtCAP is the final phase of the development program, leading, NASA hopes, to operational systems by the end of 2017.  Until commercial crew systems are operational, NASA must rely on Russia to take crews to and from ISS because the space shuttle was terminated in 2011.