Intuitive Machines Inc.

Stifel upgraded Intuitive Machines to Buy from Hold even after the company reported a much wider-than-expected second-quarter loss. The space infrastructure firm posted an adjusted loss of $0.29 per share, far worse than the $0.09 loss analysts had forecast, while revenue of $206.2 million missed the $224 million consensus. Stifel cut its price target to $26 from $32 but pointed to a $707 million jump in backlog to $1.76 billion, including more than $600 million from three commercial geostationary satellite agreements and a July deal for 18 spacecraft for the Golden Dome missile-defense network. Management reiterated full-year 2026 revenue guidance of $900 million to $1 billion and its expectation for positive adjusted EBITDA, attributing the miss largely to a negative estimate-at-completion adjustment on the IM-4 lunar lander program.

Intuitive Machines reported second-quarter revenue of $206 million, more than four times what it brought in a year earlier, and closed the quarter with a record $1.8 billion in backlog. The company reaffirmed its full-year guidance of $900 million to $1 billion in revenue and said it still expects positive adjusted EBITDA for 2026. Intuitive Machines logged $1.7 billion in bookings so far this year, including $1.2 billion in the second quarter alone, the highest quarterly total in company history. Operating loss widened to $47 million, driven by higher SG&A, amortization, and a $14.7 million cost adjustment tied to the IM-4 lunar lander program. The company raised $235 million in net proceeds this quarter through its at-the-market stock program, bringing total gross proceeds raised to date to $291 million at an average price of $26.81 a share.

Intuitive Machines shares rose 6% Monday after an undisclosed customer authorized a multi-satellite communications program valued at more than $600 million using its IM 1300 satellite platform. The company now carries a record $1.8 billion backlog, with B. Riley and Cantor Fitzgerald maintaining bullish ratings despite trimming price targets. Peers SpaceX and Rocket Lab were unchanged, confirming the award is a single-stock catalyst rather than a broader space sector re-rating. The company had previously flagged three geostationary communications satellites worth more than $600 million over the next 30 months, and investors are watching whether this authorization covers that same award or adds new work.

Intuitive Machines has been selected as a key supplier for L3Harris Technologies' Accelerated Missile Defense Tranche 3 mission. The company will provide 18 spacecraft platforms that form part of U.S. space-based missile defense infrastructure for homeland defense and hypersonic missile tracking. The contract expands Intuitive Machines' role within a core national security program and broadens its exposure to the defense market. Investors will watch how this award appears in reported backlog and revenue over the next few quarters, particularly relative to the recently cited US$1.8b backlog and US$392.9m in first half 2026 revenue.

Intuitive Machines stock jumped 10.5% in Friday trading after the company reaffirmed its full-year sales forecast and detailed plans for a lunar satellite constellation. The company posted a second-quarter net loss of $0.29 per share on revenue of roughly $206.2 million, missing Wall Street estimates that called for a $0.10 per-share loss and about $15 million more in sales. Despite the miss, Intuitive Machines still expects full-year revenue between $900 million and $1 billion and positive adjusted EBITDA. Its backlog surged to $1.8 billion at the end of Q2 from roughly $300 million at the end of 2025, and the company expects its full lunar satellite constellation network to be deployed in 2028.

NASA has awarded nearly $600 million in new lunar landing contracts to three companies, roughly doubling the initial funding for its moon base project. Astrobotic, now part of Voyager Technologies, received the largest award at $297.9 million for two payload deliveries to the moon. Intuitive Machines secured $148.3 million for a single payload delivery, while Firefly Aerospace won $144.2 million for another single delivery. NASA said in June that it intends to eventually award $20 billion in contracts, but rolled out the project with just a few hundred million dollars' worth of contract announcements to start. All three contracts fall under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, and the landers will carry identical scientific payloads including cameras, a radiation spectrometer, and a laser retroreflector array.

AST SpaceMobile, Intuitive Machines, and Redwire are positioned for significant growth in the space economy over the next ten years. AST SpaceMobile, a direct-to-cell satellite competitor to SpaceX's Starlink, plans to have 45 larger BlueBird satellites in orbit this year and reported first-quarter revenue of $14.7 million with full-year guidance of $150 million to $200 million. Intuitive Machines, the first commercial company to soft-land on the Moon, posted record quarterly revenue of $186.7 million after acquiring Lanteris Space Systems and holds a backlog of $1.1 billion. Redwire, which provided technology for NASA's Artemis II Moon flyby and operates a space greenhouse, saw revenue rise 57.9% to $97 million and was selected as one of 14 companies for the Space Force's 10-year Andromeda program, now valued at $6 billion.

NASA has awarded $590 million in new lunar lander contracts to three companies as part of its Moon Base program's first phase, explicitly framed as the second tranche in an ongoing series. Astrobotic, which is being acquired by Voyager Technologies, received the largest slice at $297.9 million for two lander deliveries. Firefly Aerospace won $144.2 million for one lander mission, and Intuitive Machines received $148.3 million for one lander mission. The awards are driven by a race to the lunar south pole, where water ice could be converted into rocket propellant, with NASA targeting a crewed landing in 2028 and China targeting 2030.

Seeking Alpha analysts Daniel Jones and Petri Dish Reports shared their views on the best space stock plays. Daniel Jones favors Iridium Communications among satellite prospects, but picks Amazon as his top space-oriented company, citing its acquisition of Globalstar at $90 per share and plans for a next-generation direct-to-device satellite system starting in 2028 that could tap a $1.61 trillion broadband and mobile services opportunity. Petri Dish Reports recommends diversifying across space niches, highlighting Earth observation and space surveillance with Planet Labs and BlackSky, launch and satellite services with Rocket Lab, defense-adjacent hypersonics and propulsion with Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, and space infrastructure with Intuitive Machines.

U.S. stock futures pointed lower on Wednesday as investors awaited remarks from Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh and monitored peace talks between the United States and Iran. Shutterstock shares plunged 28% after Getty Images abandoned its planned merger, citing unacceptable regulatory conditions from the U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority. Intuitive Machines climbed 7.4% after NASA awarded it a contract worth up to $148.3 million to deliver a Nova-C lunar lander by 2028, the company's sixth task order under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. Grindr surged 7.6% after Morgan Stanley upgraded the LGBTQ+ dating platform to Overweight and raised its price target to $18, citing strong user engagement. Klarna Group gained 6% after a Swedish court awarded its subsidiary PriceRunner approximately $1.97 billion in antitrust damages against Alphabet's Google. Oklo advanced 4.8% after the U.S. Department of Energy approved the Documented Safety Analysis for the Groves Isotope Test Reactor, moving it into final pre-startup review ahead of a July 2026 startup. ServiceNow rose 4% after Guggenheim upgraded the enterprise software company to Buy, citing durable recurring revenue growth. Nike fell nearly 4% after forecasting continued sales declines in the first half of fiscal 2027, overshadowing better-than-expected fourth-quarter revenue. Alcoa slipped 4.7% after agreeing to acquire South32's bauxite, alumina and aluminum assets for $4.1 billion.

Intuitive Machines is advancing technologies for lunar surface infrastructure, including payload deployment, surface mobility, and mission operations, to support sustained exploration. The company’s integrated approach combines transportation, surface systems, and mission technologies to serve customers from planning through surface operations, strengthening its position across the lunar value chain. As demand for reliable surface infrastructure grows with long-term exploration interest, Intuitive Machines continues investing in these capabilities. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 and 2027 earnings per share suggests a year-over-year decline of 2.38% and growth of 94.78%, respectively. LUNR shares have surged 96.9% over the past year, and the stock currently carries a Zacks Rank of 4, or Sell.

Intuitive Machines is being highlighted as a more attractive investment than SpaceX for the trillion-dollar space economy. The global space economy could grow from $626 billion in 2025 to $1.8 trillion by 2035, according to McKinsey. Intuitive Machines, which develops lunar landers for NASA, has a first-mover advantage after its IM-1 mission in 2024 marked NASA's first successful moon landing since 1972. Analysts expect its revenue to surge from $210 million in 2025 to $1.39 billion by 2028, with profitability in the final year. The stock trades at just 9 times 2025 sales and 3 times projected 2026 sales, making it more reasonably valued than SpaceX, which trades at over 100 times last year's sales.

SpaceX's post-IPO pullback may create opportunities for three smaller space stocks: AST SpaceMobile, Rocket Lab, and Intuitive Machines. After listing at $135 and peaking at $225.64 on June 16, SpaceX shares have retreated to about $160, with its market cap falling from a high of $2.66 trillion to $2.13 trillion. AST SpaceMobile builds large low-Earth-orbit satellites for telecom partners like AT&T and Verizon, with analysts projecting revenue growth from $71 million in 2025 to $1.88 billion by 2028. Rocket Lab, which has launched 89 Electron rockets and plans to debut its larger Neutron rocket this year, is expected to increase revenue from $602 million in 2025 to $1.63 billion in 2028. Intuitive Machines, which achieved America's first moon landing since 1972 with its IM-1 mission, is forecast to grow revenue from $210 million in 2025 to $1.39 billion in 2028 and trades at less than three times that 2028 revenue estimate.

Intuitive Machines announced two prime lunar reconnaissance contracts on May 18. One is a $15.5 million three-year contract for Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera operations, and the other is a $4.5 million three-year contract for ShadowCam operations. The awards support imaging, data storage, analysis, mission support, lunar mapping, and observations of permanently shadowed regions of the Moon, aligning with the company's lunar data-services strategy. The news follows Intuitive Machines' report of first-quarter 2026 revenue of $186.7 million, up from $62.5 million a year earlier, with backlog reaching $1.1 billion.

While SpaceX dominates headlines after its blockbuster IPO, four smaller public space companies are doing measurable work that merits attention. Rocket Lab is becoming a full-stack space systems builder after acquiring Motiv Space Systems and announcing solar arrays for space-based data centers, though it remains unprofitable with its Neutron rocket still in development. Planet Labs partnered with Anthropic to feed its satellite imagery into the Claude AI model, aiming to become an intelligence platform, and reached non-GAAP profitability for the first time in fiscal 2026. Intuitive Machines won a $180.4 million NASA contract for lunar south pole payloads and became prime contractor for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, while a proposed 124% increase in the Space Force budget for fiscal 2027 could change its risk profile. Redwire, a pick-and-shovel play making components like solar arrays and sensors, landed a classified national security solar array deal with Moog and an Air Force Research Laboratory contract, though it missed first-quarter 2026 EPS estimates and is betting on long-term scale.

SpaceX’s record $75 billion IPO has unlocked a $122 billion stake for Alphabet and is driving investor interest in space infrastructure companies. Alphabet’s 6.11% holding, originally a $900 million investment in 2015, is now marked to market daily at SpaceX’s $2 trillion valuation. Rocket Lab, positioned as the second serious launch provider with a nearly $1 billion contract backlog, benefits as the small-satellite launch market grows alongside SpaceX’s mega-constellation focus. Kratos Defense, which builds satellite ground systems including a $446.8 million military contract, stands to gain from increased demand for ground networks. Intuitive Machines, the only commercial company to land on the Moon and holding a $1.055 billion backlog, flies on Falcon 9 rockets and is building lunar communications infrastructure, while AST SpaceMobile, with AT&T and Vodafone agreements, is shifting launches to Falcon 9 and benefits from the heightened sector narrative around space-based connectivity.

Intuitive Machines is expanding its lunar communications and navigation infrastructure to support future missions. The company is leveraging its experience in lunar missions to build capabilities for transmitting data, supporting navigation, and maintaining connectivity between spacecraft, surface assets, and mission operators. This expansion aligns with its broader space systems capabilities and positions it to participate in a foundational layer of the lunar value chain. Intuitive Machines shares have surged 123.6% over the past year, though the stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) and trades at a forward price-to-sales ratio of 4.98, above the industry average of 2.64.