Rocket Lab has filed a formal protest with the US Government Accountability Office challenging NASA's decision to award Blue Origin a contract worth up to roughly $700 million to build the agency's Mars Telecommunications Network. The move is notable as it flips the usual script, since Blue Origin, owned by Jeff Bezos, has itself repeatedly protested NASA contract awards it lost out on, including a high-profile 2021 dispute over a lunar lander deal handed to SpaceX. Rocket Lab argues NASA's award decision breaches congressionally mandated eligibility criteria and that its own bid was reviewed inconsistently.

NASA made the award in early September, following a request for proposals issued in May, tasking Blue Origin with designing, building, launching and operating a Mars Telecommunications Orbiter to relay communications for Red Planet missions. Blue Origin's design is based on its Blue Ring spacecraft, already in production, which the company says it can build at a rate of four per year. Rocket Lab, which had earlier criticised NASA over the rejection of its own Mars Sample Return and communications orbiter proposal, says it favours open competition but disputes how this particular decision was reached.