During a press conference Friday afternoon in Washington, DC, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk also explained that his company intends to file a lawsuit against the US Air Force in a quest to compete for national security-related rocket launch contracts. His remarks came as part of the announcement of last week's successful soft-landing of the leg-equipped Falcon 9 rocket.

Further Reading SpaceX names Texas as site of its commercial space launch facility

Musk noted that SpaceX chose this approach after learning that the Air Force had entered into exclusive agreements with government contractors that locked out private companies from competing for launch contracts, without providing suitable justification for why they did so.

The current system, Musk said, “blocks companies like SpaceX for competing for national security launches. We feel that this is not right." He continued, “We’re just protesting and saying these launches should be competed. And if we compete and lose, that’s fine, but why were they not even competed?”

Musk explained that while the company was hesitant to file suit against the government in the US Court of Federal Claims, they have exhausted all other options available to them, including following the Air Force’s prescribed launch test protocol. SpaceX may have an uphill battle: it previously sued Boeing in 2005 on related allegations of anti-competitive practices—that case was dismissed the following year, and the ruling was upheld on appeal.

The company is particularly irate about the Air Force’s bulk purchase contract involving 36 Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELV) that the Air Force entered into with Boeing and Lockheed Martin in December. Per the terms of this contract, Boeing and Lockheed Martin will solely provide most national security-related launches in the coming years.

Musk wants the Air Force's exclusive contract with the defense contractors to be rescinded, and he wants the formal certification of SpaceX, as well as the establishment of a competitive bidding process for launch contracts.

While Musk also announced that SpaceX has chosen southern Texas as the location where it will build its own launch facility, other barriers remain for the ambitious CEO. The company is still waiting on “an environmental clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration,” but it remains optimistic that it will have its spaceport up and running “in a couple of years.”

The US Air Force press office did not wish to comment, telling Ars that it learned of the lawsuit today.

SpaceX did not respond to Ars' repeated requests for further comment.