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The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a criminal probe into whether the former head of NASA’s Boeing Co human spaceflight provided incorrect guidance during a lucrative competition for lunar lander contracts, two people familiar with the case said. on Friday.
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The Justice Department has sent messages to NASA, Boeing and Doug Loverro, who led the agency’s space program until he was abruptly fired in May, as part of a grand jury investigation into possible violations of federal procurement laws , said the sources.
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In the probe, which opened in June, prosecutors focused on communications between Loverro and Boeing space executor Jim Chilton in late January, during a blackout period for competition from the Human Landing System, one of the sources said.
Representatives for Boeing and Loverro declined to comment. NASA declined to comment on personnel matters and the status of any investigation, but said the agency was confident in its procurement process.
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The probe was previously reported by the Wall Street Journal.
The investigation, and a previous probe by a NASA watchdog, has cast a shadow over one of NASA’s most ambitious endeavors: sending humans back to the moon from American soil for the first time in nearly half a century.
In April, NASA launched Boeing – an industry juggernaut with deep ties to space travel – and awarded contracts worth a $ 1 billion combination to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, founder of Amazon.com Inc, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, and Leidos Inc. subsidiary Dynetics to build land landing gears that could bring astronauts to the moon by 2024.
Boeing was removed from the competition, NASA said in April, without explaining why.
Two people informed of a NASA watchdog investigation told Reuters Boeing was disillusioned with their contact with Loverro.
The sources said that NASA’s Office of Inspector General found that Loverro Boeing told during a blackout period that the company’s proposal was incomplete and discussed aspects of the missing bid.
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After talks with Loverro, Boeing officials submitted a different version during the blackout period, raising legal concerns among agency staff, one of the men said.
Loverro resigned abruptly in May after less than a year on the job, telling staff in an email seen by Reuters that he took certain “risks” to meet NASA’s 20 dead months.
“It’s clear I made a mistake in that choice for which I should only bear the consequences,” Loverro said, without explaining the mistake he was referring to.
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