U.S. prosecutors investigate former NASA officer Boeing over space contract: sources

WASHINGTON / SEATTLE (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a criminal probe into whether the former head of NASA’s human spaceflight gave Boeing Co.PROHIBITION) wrong guidance during a lucrative lunar-lander contract competition, said two people familiar with the matter on Friday.

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.

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.

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 passed Boeing – an industry juggernaut with deep ties to space travel – and awarded contracts worth a $ 1 billion deal to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, and Leidos Inc. joined Dynetics on Monday to build landing signals 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.

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 follow NASA’s 20 dead months.

“It is clear that I have made a mistake in that choice for which I only have to bear the consequences,” Loverro said, without commenting on the mistake to which he referred.