Bigelow Aerospace Sues NASA
Bigelow Aerospace has sued NASA for alleged breach of contract over testing the North Las Vegas company conducted on its B330 space station module prototype.
Bigelow is demanding just over $1 million in unpaid contract fees and attorney costs. At issue is a contract under which Bigelow would complete long-term pressure leak tests on the B330 module.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports:
According to the lawsuit, Bigelow Aerospace was required to perform a leak test on its module and “provide certain periodic test reports” to NASA. The reports were scheduled and were required to summarize the results of the test, specifically whether the B330 had met certain standards set by NASA.…
Bigelow Aerospace said NASA breached its contract with the agency by refusing to pay the full amount to the company.
According to the suit, multiple attempts were made between January and February to demand payment. The lawsuit said that NASA’s attorney requested raw test data from Bigelow’s testing carried out under the contract as a prerequisite of being paid the amount owed.
“However, this requirement was not a term of the Contract, and was an attempt by NASA to place additional requirements on Bigelow Aerospace that had not been part of the parties’ agreement,” according to the lawsuit.
Hotel magnate Robert Bigelow owns the Nevada-based company, which builds inflatable space habitats. The experimental Bigelow Expandable Aerospace Module (BEAM) was attached to the International Space Station in 2016 as a test of the technology. It is significantly smaller than the B330.
Bigelow Aerospace laid off all of its employees a year ago. The company said the move was due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and that it had plans to rehire people once the pandemic eased. It is not known whether anyone has been hired back.
14 responses to “Bigelow Aerospace Sues NASA”
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Inflatable space stations are one of the stupidest ideas ever. It speaks volumes that the NewSpace fans are so gullible and deluded they actually believed this concept appropriate in any way. It is absolutely one of the best ways to get people killed in space. This cheap and nasty gimmick was shouted from the mountaintops as the next big thing while the wet workshop, the ultimate reusability scheme, adaptable to cosmic ray water shielding and tether generated artificial gravity, was mocked and denigrated as somehow antiquated and obsolete. Bizarre.
There is no cheap.
They definitely got kinda screwed over by NASA – not necessarily in a criminal way or anything, but in the way of NASA talking up the need for commercial space stations and public-private partnerships, a company steps up with its own investments, and…NASA just lets them wither on the vine — while NASA continues to talk up public-private investments in space stations.
That said, there were obviously timing issues in that Bigelow was ready years before commercial lift for crew and private customers was available, leaving them solely dependent on NASA business (see above).
A frustrating story. Even if they were to ever get going again, now Mr. Bigelow is quite old and their key intellectual property rights have, iirc, expired
The entire alt space community is ahead of the times in conceptual space exploration. The rest of society just doesn’t want to play at the same rate as those of us who are more enthusiastic than others.
good morning Andrew and rhe realdmt…the rest of society has no real way to play in a space world and NASA and government policy does not care.
Yup. Space advocates should look at their true-believer socialist brethren who get all worked up when society does not allocate resources in the way that THEY’d have society allocate its resources. Charity does not have the ties into armaments and warfare space travel does. We space fan boys should count our blessings.
“You” spaceX fan boys are a curse to space exploration.
No blessing.
That has ceased to be true these last two decades. Over that interval the number of credible private sector players has gone from zero to hundreds – tens of thousands if one counts the workforces of the entrepreneurial space pioneers. And soon there will be significant and growing opportunities for ordinary investors to grab a piece of the action.
What is the “alt” space community? I know many Trump/Musk worshipers fall into the alt right category. Is that what you are dragging space enthusiasts into? Puh-leez.
Which doesn’t matter. “The rest of society” will follow along once the pioneers blaze the trails – as has always been the case. But those pioneers will not, for the most part, be government employees.
Dream on. The government is always there and always will be. Most frontiersmen in N America spent their time going and coming from US Army posts.
So they didn’t supply NASA with the raw data, and they didn’t receive a payment. But when did Bigelow lay off all their employees and shut the door ? I’m pretty sure that was before Jan / Feb. Why should NASA fund them if they aren’t doing research ?
“-NASA just lets them wither on the vine — while NASA continues to talk up public-private investments-“
Yeah…that must be “frustrating.” Fanboys cry a river because they don’t get it- there is no cheap. No free. No miracle.
The fate of Bigelow was unfortunate but it’s hardly as though it was the only private sector organization pursuing LEO space station technology.
There certainly is no free and no miracle, but, then, neither is required to open up space. Cheap, on the other hand, is mandatory. And we’ve already seen considerable progress on that front with much more to come shortly.
Cheap kills people and stops any progress. Only fools like you don’t get it.