These discussions happened early this season, through a short period when NASA had been taking bids to build a Human Landing Program for the Artemis Moon Program.
"Mr. Loverro, that was not a part of NASA's official contracting team, advised Mr. Chilton the Chicago aerospace giant was going to be removed from the contest based on technical and cost tests," the report says, citing anonymous sources. "Within days, Boeing filed a revised proposal"
Loverro resigned from NASA at mid-May, a couple weeks later NASA awarded three Individual Genome Systems contracts: $579 million to a group headed by Blue Origin, $253 million into Dynetics, and $135 million into SpaceX. Boeing and another bidder didn't get awards.
Although this news story brings fresh info regarding the criminal investigation, it doesn't offer much extra detail beyond the broad outlines of what has been known later Loverro stepped in May 2020. Some vital questions remain.
Numerous sources have stated Loverro was really acting on his own initiative, yet this reality probably won't be understood until NASA's Inspector General finishes an investigation to the topic. That investigation began earlier this season.
Another question is that which Loverro's motives were. Were he discovered to have received kickbacks, Loverro may face jail time. However, this doesn't seem to have been exactly what occurred. Instead, many sources told Ars the Loverro thought Boeing's proposal to establish an integrated landing platform onto a Space Launch System into the Moon represented the simplest method of landing humans on the Moon by 2024. Therefore, he desired the company to submit a competitive bidding.
Doug Loverro, formerly NASA's chief of human spaceflight.
In the end, there's no question of exactly what this implies for your Artemis Program. For the coming financial year, the White House asked for $3.37 billion to accelerate growth of the lander so as to generate the 2024 target. The US House's proposed budget, nevertheless, provides just $628.2 million to the lander. A last budget may come after this season, following House and Senate discussions.
Concerns about the continuing research into Boeing and Loverro, however, might embolden Congressional urge to slow down financing to the Artemis Program and especially the lander.