Whereas all the competition has to use their own R&D budget to show capability to meet the requirements of the second contract, the winner of the first contract used the government's R&D money to be competitive.
Whereas all the competition has to use their own R&D budget to show capability to meet the requirements of the second contract, the winner of the first contract used the government's R&D money to be competitive.
Any company can do that to another company.
Welcome to Capitalism. Just because it is a government contract doesn't by default mean it is Socialism.
And, of course they can re-bid. Just like every other corporation does.
No I'm just assuming SpaceX will win the recompetition and complaining about that future event.
And no, it doesn't need to be an "of course they can" inevitability. The rules of competition define what can and can't happen. If the rules of this competition allow a rebid, then that is a conscious decision. Rules / laws could be changed to disallow rebidding on follow-on contracts if there was a failure to deliver on the first one.