Rocket Lab has filed a formal protest with the US Government Accountability Office after losing out to Blue Origin for NASA's Mars Telecommunications Network contract, a $700 million project to build, launch and operate a communications relay spacecraft at Mars. Rocket Lab argues that NASA's award decision does not match the eligibility criteria set out by Congress and that the agency's assessment of its technical proposal was flawed. Blue Origin has countered that the protest risks delaying the mission's planned 2028 launch, warning that Mars's limited launch windows make any hold-up particularly costly.

The dispute centres on wording in the "One Big Beautiful Bill" funding legislation, led by Senator Ted Cruz, which restricted eligible bidders to firms that had received 2024–2025 funding for Mars Sample Return design studies and had separately proposed an "end-to-end" Mars telecommunications orbiter. Alongside Blue Origin and Rocket Lab, eligible bidders included L3Harris, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, SpaceX, Quantum Space and Whittinghill Aerospace, though sources suggest the "end-to-end" clause was originally intended to favour Rocket Lab. NASA nonetheless selected Blue Origin's Blue Ring-based proposal, prompting Rocket Lab's protest, and it remains unclear why lawmakers framed the eligibility rules as they did or why NASA ultimately chose Blue Origin.