Intuitive Machines (NASDAQ: LUNR) stock soared 15.8% through 9:45 a.m. ET Friday morning after the company announced it has won its fourth moon landing contract from NASA.
IM-4 -- the name of the mission -- will see Intuitive Machines send another of its Nova-C-class moon landers to the lunar south pole, there to deliver "six science and technology payloads, including one European Space Agency-led drill suite."
CLPS loves LUNR
Intuitive Machines' IM-4 mission falls under the umbrella of NASA's multibillion-dollar Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which hires private space companies to carry payloads to the moon as preparation for Project Artemis -- Mankind's return to the moon. Financially speaking, CLPS is structured to have contractors perform missions as a service for NASA, rather than the old system in which companies would build and sell spacecraft to NASA, which the space agency would then launch and operate.
In this regard, it mimics NASA's approach taken in ongoing contracts for transportation of supplies (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services or "COTS") and astronauts (Commercial Crew Program or "CCP") to the International Space Station.
The objective is to lower the cost of space missions for NASA. And by all the evidence, this objective is succeeding. Intuitive Machines will be paid $116.9 million for the IM-4 mission. For context, Surveyor 1, NASA's first mission to put an uncrewed lander on the moon, cost the equivalent of $4.2 billion in 2024 dollars.
Is Intuitive Machines stock a buy?
Long story short, Intuitive Machines is giving NASA a bargain in spaceflight. But is Intuitive Machines stock a bargain for you?
That remains to be seen. Valued at $345 million after today's run-up in stock price, Intuitive Machines stock is not yet profitable. Analysts polled by S&P Global Market Intelligence don't expect it to become profitable before 2026, either, believing the company needs to roughly double its annual revenue to $475 million or more to reach a big enough scale of production to start earning profits.
The good news for investors is: The more of these NASA contracts Intuitive wins, the closer to profits Intuitive gets.
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Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
