[Satellite Today 05-21-09] Boeing Co. accused NASA of “inexplicably” altering the evaluation process between the company and its competitor, Lockheed Martin, in the battle for a $1.1 billion contract to build up to four GOES-R weather satellites, Boeing announced May 19.
    NASA awarded Lockheed Martin with the contract in December. Boeing initially filed a protest to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) immediately after the deal was announced. The GAO opened a review on the issue, but never completed it due to NASA’s agreement to re-evaluate the bids.
    Despite the agreement, NASA upheld its original award decision on May 6, which prompted Boeing to request that the GAO reopen its review, Boeing said.
    “In this instance we think [the complaint] is warranted because of serious flaws and a lack of transparency in the selection process. Our understanding of the initial evaluation is that Boeing’s scores were higher, but NASA inexplicably changed the scores. These scores involved the mission suitability factors and switched the positions of Boeing and Lockheed Martin in the competition. We also believe our cost estimate is more believable because we built GOES N, O and P, which were used as the basis for GOES-R price. Besides that, we learned that certain documents relating to the initial evaluation were destroyed,” said Boeing spokesman Joseph Tedino, in a statement.
    In a company statement, Lockheed Martin said it is "confident the GAO ultimately will uphold NASA’s recent decision to select Lockheed Martin."
    Calls to NASA were not immediately returned.