(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-12-22 16:09

NASA officials would not say if it were a personal or organization conflict, which experts say makes a big difference in what happens next.

The conflict issue was not created by NASA, but by one of the firms, McCuistion said.

Steven Schooner, co-director of the government procurement law program at the George Washington University Law School, said the way NASA was handling the conflict and procurement process for the probe was unusual. The agency's secrecy about who is involved makes no sense because "it's eventually going to come out," he said.

Also, he said, "How are the firms competing to know whether they're going to get a fair shake going forward?"

The two teams involved are the University of Colorado in Boulder and the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.

Bruce Jakosky, the head of the Colorado team, said he knows of no conflict on his team.

"I'm incredibly disappointed," Jakosky said Friday. "We think we've got an outstanding mission and we're ready to go."

Craig Witherow, spokesman for the Southwest Research Institute, said by e-mail that he could not comment on the delay or questions about a conflict.

NASA officials said the conflict did not involve S. Alan Stern, the agency's associate administrator for science. Stern was identified in a January NASA news release as the project manager of the Southwest proposal; less than a month later, he was hired to be the space agency's science chief.

Last year NASA amended its procurement process to prohibit Science Applications International Corporation of San Diego from having a role in the probe proposals because the firm was helping the space agency evaluate them.

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