The space company Blue Origin of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has sued the US government over a billion dollar contract with the competitor SpaceX from Tesla founder Elon Musk.
As Blue Origin announced on Monday, "errors" in the award procedure for the new lunar module of the NASA space agency are to be corrected with the lawsuit.
NASA awarded the $ 2.9 billion (€ 2.5 billion) contract to SpaceX in April.
"We strongly believe that the issues in the procurement process and its outcome need to be resolved in order to restore fairness, ensure competition and ensure a safe return to the moon for America," said Blue Origin.
Blue Origin had already protested violently against NASA's decision immediately after the award to SpaceX and, among other things, lodged a complaint with the US audit office.
Nasa said on Monday that it had been informed of the lawsuit from Blue Origin and was investigating the case.
Test flight without crew
For the first time since 1972, NASA wants to bring astronauts to the moon again.
With the mission Artemis 1, according to the previous plans, a spaceship is to be launched as a test flight to the moon at the end of this year.
Initially without a crew, it should orbit the moon and then return to earth.
With Artemis 2, astronauts are expected to orbit the moon in 2023. Only with Artemis 3 will astronauts actually land on Earth's satellite. Ex-US President Donald Trump had set NASA a deadline of 2024 for this. It is still unclear whether Trump's successor Joe Biden will stick to the extremely ambitious schedule.