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A federal judge on Thursday rejected Jeff Bezos’ latest legal attempt to break NASA’s multibillion-dollar moon landing contract with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, ending a months-long war between the space companies of the world’s two richest men.

The conflict put a significant snag on NASA’s plans to send humans back to the moon for the first time since 1972. The decision leaves Mr. Bezos’ company with several other legal avenues to challenge the contract, making it more likely when American astronauts return. They will travel on the lunar surface in a spacecraft built by Mr. Musk’s company.

However, NASA was unable to work with SpaceX on the program during Blue Origin’s legal challenges that could delay the return to the moon.

“It’s disappointing that we haven’t been able to make any progress,” said Pam Melroy, NASA’s deputy administrator, in an interview Wednesday before the decision was announced. He added that meeting with the company to evaluate the timetable for the lunar mission is “a very high priority” for NASA.

Mr. Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin, sued NASA in August, alleging that the agency unfairly awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract in April to run the first two missions to the moon. The launches will be part of Artemis, NASA’s flagship effort to build an American presence on the lunar surface.

Judge Richard A. Hertling of the US Federal Court of Claims rejected Blue Origin’s claims on Thursday and sided with NASA. However, his full order was sealed and the reasoning for the decision was unknown until now.

A spokesperson for Blue Origin said the company’s lawsuit highlights “significant safety issues” in NASA’s fundraising effort that “still need to be addressed” for a lunar lander, but added: “Next steps are NASA. We look forward to hearing from the Artemis program for future moon landing competitions.

NASA did not immediately comment on the decision.

While SpaceX did not comment, Mr. Musk said: responsive to the decisionposted an image referencing Twitter “Judge Dredd,” a dystopian science fiction comic and movie, he said: “You are on trial.”

The contract lawsuit was one of many industry conflicts, reflecting the conflicting ambitions of two billionaire entrepreneurs who pour billions of dollars into rival efforts to normalize space transportation.

Musk, CEO and founder of SpaceX and Tesla, which makes electric cars, founded the space company in 2002 with dreams of making humanity a “multi-planetary” species. Bezos, founder and former CEO of Amazon, founded Blue Origin in 2000 with the goal of “millions of people living and working in space.”

These lofty pursuits bolstered six months of legal bickering, rigorous lobbying, and public complaints that Blue Origin waged after losing to SpaceX in NASA’s moon landing program. This coveted contract to send humans to the moon could provide an important boost to the reliability of Blue Origin, which flew humans to the edge of space but never made it to Earth orbit or beyond.

Blue Origin has partnered with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Draper to develop the Blue Moon lunar lander and bid $5.9 billion, formed an aviation heavyweight team that it thought would be too good for NASA to turn it down, and the space agency’s back. He had bet he would return. Be willing to negotiate a lower price if necessary.

NASA initially wanted to choose two different lunar landing systems in case one fell behind during development, but was limited by funding from Congress, which last year allocated only a quarter of what the White House had requested for the program. NASA just awarded SpaceX a contract, as the company’s offer is half the price of Blue Origin’s Blue Moon offer.

NASA funds, now unlocked by the agency’s court victory, will help accelerate the whirlwind development of Starship, a fully reusable system central to Mr. The company is developing the rocket at its rapidly expanding facilities in South Texas and testing the launch. After several tests on the vehicle that resulted in the explosion, the company completed its high-altitude flight. landed successfully in May. In the near future, the company plans orbital testing of the spacecraft without passengers.

The NASA contract calls for two Starship trips to the moon and back, with the second mission carrying American astronauts. NASA’s stated deadline for landing on the moon, First announced by the Trump administrationis 2024.

But that didn’t seem realistic even before Blue Origin’s legal challenges that forced NASA to stop working with SpaceX as the lawsuit continued for six months.

At First Blue Origin Protest with the Government Accountability Office Filed in April, the company argued that NASA should revoke or change the program’s rules when it realized it couldn’t afford the two terrain systems (another company, Dynetics, filed a similar complaint). The Bureau dismissed this argument, and NASA, which has managed dozens more, considered all proposals fairly.