u/VictorFromCalifornia

I have always dismissed these talks about orbital data centers as just hubris, something Elon Musk and other Silicon Valley people came up with to inflate their companies values and stocks. But hearing it directly from Steve Altemus, a former NASA Johnson Space Center Associate Director, and JSC former Director of Engineering should be taken a bit more seriously. Then I saw Elon Musk's tweet today predicting ODCs will be in operation by 2029, I will take that with a grain of salt but let's say by early 2030s, most hyperscalers will have some sort of presence in space.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2088306926442430578?s=20

Now let's take a close look at what Steve Altemus actually said this year:

>March 2026 Call: "I think there is a lot of difference of opinion on where the actual customer base will be for on-orbit data centers and what the architecture for on-orbit data centers will be. We are studying that very carefully right now. I think what Lantaris brings to the table is this Power and Propulsion Element — the most powerful power-generating spacecraft ever built — that has the ability to be a node in a data center. If you think about data centers in particular, there is the storage element, the transmission element, and the edge computing element or the high-speed computing."

>"I think edge computing in space and doing decision-making in space is the key to the future of data centers, as opposed to replacing terrestrial-based data centers. I am skeptical about large, extremely large proliferated constellations in low Earth orbit. They have their challenges, both in power generation and in thermal management. Thinking about it with a set of large and small nodes together, maybe up in the GEO belt, is probably a better architecture, and that is where we are aiming at this point."

>May 2026 Call: "Intuitive Machines as a whole, as a combined company, has some incredible capabilities that we're thinking through as an offering for orbital data centers. The build portion of our company, the production, certainly the power propulsive element, the most highest power-generating spacecraft ever built, can be reproduced at 60,000 W. We're already thinking about, you know, 100 kW in terms of power generation. Our capabilities as a company, thinking about thermal management and managing the heat load of edge computing and the need for heat rejection in high speed computing orbital data centers is critical. As a space company, we have that skill to manage that."

>August 2026 Call: "Beyond traditional communication satellites, we believe the same high-power spacecraft architecture positions us well for the emerging commercial orbital data center market. We are currently discussing strategic partnerships to bring our expertise and satellite production capability to this burgeoning market."

Remember, the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) that Lanteris built on the IM-1300 architecture is now being repurposed to power SR-1 Freedom mission to Mars. While other companies may talk about building these giant structures, IM/Lanteris did that already and have the expertise and processes to build these behemoth space structures.

So as companies and especially the hyperscalers start to look at scaling (see that same Musk tweet above, it was in response to a study that all AI compute scaling in 2030s will happen in space), they need to partner with experienced space infrastructure operators, and there are literally 11 companies out there with such capabilities--SpaceX and the big legacy defense contractors and then few others like Maxar/Lanteris' with the technology and flight-proven reputation. Maxar/Lanteris has close to 100 IM-1300 in orbit as I type this. BTW, Rocket Lab was just awarded its first 3 GEO satellites.

Reference: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/blog/top-10-satellite-bus-companies-11136

Jensen Huang kind of echoed Steve Altemus when he said he doesn't see these proliferated orbital data centers yet, but building these big data center nodes in GEO to process space-based data (military or otherwise) and then beam relevant data optically to LEO constellations who would then beam it to Earth makes the most engineering sense at the moment, or at least in the near future. The analysts have started to pick up on that theme considering the questions about ODC's in the last few calls. If you're shooting to have something up in space by 2030, then you're already talking to partners and suppliers today and that's what he was probably referring to yesterday:

>"There's some other strategic partnerships we're looking at in terms of orbital data centers that we bid, and we'll wait to hear whether or not our experience in high-power satellites wins the day, and we win those development efforts for on-orbit data centers."

Maybe I won't take Orbital Data Centers mentions as an afterthought any longer. This is a very underappreciated part of a IM story that's dominated by the NASA Moon Base and Golden Dome contracts. It may take several months to see what role IM can truly play, but it's worth keeping an eye on it going forward. Sorry for the long post, wanted to keep it as a placeholder. I welcome your feedback.

Steve Altemus (CEO) prepared comments that are worth highlighting:

>As of this call, Intuitive Machines generated $1.7 billion in bookings this year, including $1.2 billion in new bookings in quarter 2 through today. This marks the highest quarterly bookings in company history and validates our strategy by expanding the infrastructure base we are building for the future. Quarter 2 bookings also include partial awards with authority to proceed. We anticipate these ATPs will contribute an additional $300 million in bookings through the second half of the year as the contracts are fully definitized.

>This quarter's bookings reflect that diversification. Our $1.8 billion Q2 backlog is split approximately 37% civil space, 49% commercial space, and 14% national security space. Q2 bookings through today were composed of approximately 20% civil, 50% commercial, and 30% national security space, highlighting our continued diversification.

>Beginning with our civil portfolio, NASA continues to advance its long-term vision for sustained lunar exploration through the Moon Base initiative. Earlier this year, we were awarded the CT-4 mission, and this quarter, NASA selected Intuitive Machines for the CS-8 mission, extending our lunar delivery cadence beyond 2028 into 2030. These awards represent our fifth and sixth missions under the CLPS contract. Looking ahead, we expect to compete for four additional CLPS task order opportunities this year, including the 10-year CLPS 2 multi-award follow-on contract. These opportunities represent far more than individual delivery missions. They reinforce the transition from demonstration missions toward higher cadence, repeatable, and reliable lunar transportation, supporting long-term operations on the Moon.

>We also began work with NASA under our first contract supporting the reconfiguration of the gateway power and propulsion element for NASA's flagship Mars mission, SR-1 Freedom.

>This quarter, we successfully delivered all 16 satellites supporting the SDA Tranche 1 tracking layer while continuing production on Tranche 2 tracking layer. Earlier this year, we expanded that production line with awards for the SDA Tranche 3 tracking layer, representing another 18 satellites. As of this earnings call, we were awarded an additional 18 satellites supporting AMDT-3, part of the nation's Golden Dome architecture. In addition, we received ATP on an award for two restricted 300 series spacecraft to an undisclosed customer. With these recent awards, we have more than 70 IM 300 spacecraft under contract today. In Q2, we were awarded three geostationary communication satellites from an undisclosed customer, valued at over $600 million over the next 30 months. Sirius XM-11 also launched and deployed during the quarter, and we are on track to hand that spacecraft over to the customer later this month, continuing the long heritage of one of the industry's most reliable commercial communication satellites. Beyond traditional communication satellites, we believe the same high-power spacecraft architecture positions us well for the emerging commercial orbital data center market. We are currently discussing strategic partnerships to bring our expertise and satellite production capability to this burgeoning market.

>As part of the acceleration associated with Moon Base, development continues on Altus-2 through 5. We now plan to deploy these remaining four satellites together in 2028 to complete our lunar communications constellation ahead of schedule.

Pete McGrath (CFO) prepared remarks:

>We delivered $206 million in revenue for the quarter. That was driven primarily by execution across satellite manufacturing, CLPS missions, NSNS, and OMES programs. Gross profit increased to $36 million in the quarter, up significantly from negative $12 million in the prior year. This improvement was driven by the growing contribution from our satellite business and the continued focus on cost and execution across our programs. SG&A was $60 million in the quarter, which includes approximately $11 million of share-based compensation, $8 million of acquisition-related transaction and integration costs, some additional headcount as we adjusted our growth initiatives, as well as some timing on software license renewals in the quarter. Operating cash reflected strategic investments in long lead inventory to position for competitive awards, as Steve described earlier. Operating cash included approximately $17 million of accelerated inventory and infrastructure investment supporting awarded or anticipated programs, $8 million of acquisition and integration costs, and $17 million associated with the IM-4 milestone payment to SpaceX. We believe the strategic investment in the quarter has strengthened our production readiness, supported recent awards, and positioned us to convert our growing backlog into future revenue. Capital expenditures of $24 million was primarily for our NSNS satellite constellation and ground segment. Note that CapEx in the quarter includes not only our first NSNS satellite, but also upgrades to our ground segment and long lead material buys for satellites 2 through 5, as we look to accelerate the full constellation following our discussions with NASA. CapEx is expected to be at these elevated levels in the coming quarters as we continue to work on all five satellites. Taken together, these investments, along with timing of milestone payments received, resulted in an $84 million of cash deployment during the quarter. While investments increased near-term cash usage, we believe it strengthened our ability to execute our record backlog, expand our long-term competitive position, and accelerate recurring infrastructure services. Free cash flow is expected to improve throughout the second half of the year as investments stabilize and milestone receivables come in following our recent awards. We ended the quarter with $367 million in cash, which includes $235 million in net proceeds in the quarter from our at-the-market program. Total to date, we have raised $291 million gross at a VWAP of $26.81. Our current liquidity provides the capital necessary to fund current operations. Turning to growth and backlog. We exited the quarter with a record $1.8 billion in backlog, supported by $920 million in new bookings, highlighted by three commercial GEO satellite awards, our sixth CLPS mission, CS-8, and 18 AMDT-3 Golden Dome satellites for L3Harris in support of their national security space customer. This backlog provides strong multi-year visibility and reflects increasing demand across both civil and national security markets. Approximately 25%-30% of our Q2 backlog is expected to be revenue in 2026, 35%-40% in 2027, and the remaining thereafter. As of August 6th, our total share outstanding are 228.9 million, with 173.2 million shares of Class A and 55.7 million shares of Class C. Moving on to guidance. We are reaffirming our full-year revenue outlook of $900 million to $1 billion and continue to expect positive adjusted EBITDA for the year. Our $1.8 billion backlog provides substantial visibility into the remainder of 2026.

Q&A Highlights:

Griffin Boss (Riley) on CLPS:

>Steve Altemus response: Yeah. Griffin, good morning. Yes. Well, there's two awards, or I'm sorry, task orders issued with draft RFPs that are coming on top of each other here for this summer. Plus, those are lander missions. The other mission coming out this year, a little bit later this summer, maybe early fall, is the orbiter surveyor to map the Moon in replacement of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Then there is this year, we expect the CLPS 2.0, which is estimated to be over $10 billion multi-award IDIQ. So that'll be much like CLPS 1 that spans 10 years with probably an option for five more years. Plussed up about 4X from where CLPS 1 was, to really get to the heavier cargo landers, and that'll be multi-award. Then we think as we cross the new year into January timeframe, there's the final award for CLPS 1.0, which will be a procurement called CLPS CP-32. So those are the, what, five awards or task orders that we're expecting and contracts we're expecting for the balance of the year and crossing into the new year.

Jonathan Siegmann (Stifel) on backlog and production (it seems Jonathan was asking if they can handle such a big backlog?):

>Good morning, Jonathan. The 300 series satellite is a full-on production. You hear us talking about SDA tracking layer, tranche 1, 2, and 3. Those satellites, full production line spinning off those 300 series satellites for proliferated low Earth orbit constellation. We have production line for the 1300 series geosynchronous satellites, communication satellites. You heard recently we have launched and checked out EchoStar satellite. We have launched and are checking out the Sirius XM satellites. You see them coming in lesser numbers, but full production. We have a series of that 80 satellites under contract. The 300 series has the bulk in production. We have a series of one-off satellites. Those are our spacecraft. Those are our CLPS mission landers, which we have mission 3, 4, 5, and 6 to build.

>Pete McGrath**:** Just to add one more thing to that. Steve mentioned the 300 class satellite. That is the one where we are producing 70 currently. The bulk of the non-recurring was retired with the first 16 satellites that were delivered to SDA for tranche 1, and there is very high commonality across the BUS going forward. That is truly more of a production run of a common satellite. That is how we can put 70 through the factory at a given time. When we think about the capacity for additional orders, can you layer on more in the near term, or do they get added to the back of the queue? Thank you.

>We have capacity and have been putting on additional capacity, not only here in Houston, where we are adding another 75,000 sq ft of production space and manufacturing space to actually build the additional landers and satellites for the data relay constellation. Also, we have not yet tapped out the full 300 series production line. We have additional room to expand that throughput in that production as further orders come in. So with over 1 million sq ft of manufacturing production space and office space in the company, we have ample room to grow still.

Andres Sheppard (Cantor) on IM-3 timeline and then on LTVs: We are scheduled in the launch window January through March for mission 3 of next year on a SpaceX Falcon 9.

>Yeah. The LTV contract was a massive award to three vendors that could bid on that $4.5 billion worth of value over a period of about 10 years, I think, with a five-year option. The very small initial awards were issued back in May, if you recall. In talking to Moon Base initiative, folks at NASA, there is a lot more activity left to go on LTV as they build greater and greater capability, and we will wait to see when those task orders come out, and we will bid on those and move that forward. I think the long pole or what is driving the actually slow pace of the LTV is the fact that there are no heavy cargo landers available to fly the larger LTV, which was what our primary bid was.

>We are working heads down to build a heavier cargo variant of our Nova-C class lander that can accommodate LTV flights in the future. That is part of the roadmap that NASA Moon Base is looking for in phase 2, and that is where we are positioning ourselves.

Suji DeSilva (Roth) on backlog and pipeline:

>Yeah, Suji, good morning. I did talk briefly about the CLPS opportunities with Griffin in the first question. We have four opportunities this year to bid on additional CLPS missions. Recently, there was a call, in addition in our communications and networking area, there was a call for commercialization of a portion of the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite system network, TDRS. We bid on the TDRS replacement that is in K-band, Ka-band. We will wait and see whether or not we will receive that award. That comes in three phases. Then there is some other strategic partnerships we are looking at in terms of orbital data centers that we bid, and we will wait to hear whether or not our experience in high-power satellites wins the day, and we win those development efforts on orbital data centers. So those are some of the major activities.

>I think there is one other in national security space that we are really keenly looking for, that is Andromeda. It is called the RG-XX. It is a GEO, highly maneuvered geosynchronous orbit satellite for national security space. So really exciting opportunities in front of us, all major programs, and that is yet to be seen in our backlog.

On NSNS satellites 2-5:

>Yeah. So initially, Suji, what we had planned was a launch of Altus-1, and then our missions to fly additional satellites were opportunistic to align with the CLPS awards that we had received, and we would rideshare two additional satellites on every lander mission. What that did, in effect, was while it got the next two after Altus-1 up in orbit sooner, our fully operational capability was delayed out to 2029 or 2030. When we spoke to NASA, they were interested in putting on the fully operational capability. So we pulled the satellites off of our CLPS missions, are negotiating with NASA for a dedicated launch to fly all four simultaneously on an independent mission to take all four of the trans-lunar injection and then fly all four out and deposit them in lunar orbit, all at once to get a fully operational capability in 2028.

>That is the acceleration that we are talking about. So we are very excited about that and getting that network up and running in time for the Artemis missions.

Edison Yu (Deutsche Bank): Good morning. Thanks for taking our questions. One, to start off, housekeeping. The $600 million in GEO sats, for the three GEO sats, is that for the C-band? Is that related to the C-band reallocation or is that separate?

>Steve Altemus: I have that yet undisclosed, Edison, and in the future, we'll come out and give you a little more color on that one.

Greg Pendy (Clear Street) on NSNS satellites and pay-by-minute service:

>Yeah. As you heard in this introduction, we're going to fly the Altus-1 first communication and data relay satellite on Mission 3 in the first quarter of 2027. We'll then follow it up with four additional satellites. Our complete constellation includes five satellites around the Moon that do communications in K, X, and S-band. Those will all be deployed and operational in 2028, is the plan. We'll have a pay-by-the-minute structure with a minimum set of minutes for data relay, but then there's an additional position, navigation, and timing service revenue as we add the PNT, the navigation and timing, which will be a kind of a broadcast always-on service that'll be supported by the government to keep that signal processing for any missions that go around the Moon.

>That's kind of the two-phase structure for the business in terms of payments and revenue, and the timing being the 2028 activation of the full operational capability.

>Yeah. What is really important as part of the NASA ignition event was to align all of the systems that, pardon me, all the systems that have to support Artemis IV, which is humans on the Moon in 2028. Our fully operational capability was opportunistic, flying two birds on the next two subsequent missions after Mission 3, the CLPS missions, which extended us out into July of 2029. We needed to pull those back in, and it really was not a constraint for how we build the satellites. That was not a challenge. It was when we could get launch capacity to put those in orbit. By renegotiating with NASA the launch strategy for those satellites, we are able to pull full operational capability back to the left into 2028 to support the Artemis program.

>Pete McGrath: Yeah, and just to know, we are seeing some benefits in that too, because now we are buying four ship sets, and we have got good commonality in purchasing as well as assembly and integration. It actually is becoming more beneficial from a business perspective to accelerate as well.

Michael Leshock (Keybanc) on NASA accelerated demand for landers:

>Steve Altemus: Yeah. We recently bid a mission called CS-8, which was exactly what you're pulling on, is how do you get to production lander. That's the whole idea here is no longer building bespoke landers for each individual mission, but how do you get the production rate up? We bid a 26-month development and build time for CS-8, and that'll fly in 2028. That's for the Nova-C. We do have a Nova-D class, roughly 500 kilograms of payload to the surface, under contract in CT-4. We're looking at building two in a row or two in parallel, is a better way to put it, in our facilities here, anticipating an award for a second Nova-D in the same time frame, which is the 2029 time frame.

Followup on NSNS opportunities:

>Steve Altemus: Well, we initially bid about half a million minutes a year for that operational capability. We will have to wait and see what the ultimate demand is. I think that demand for that network will span across civil space, commercial, and national security space with all the activity that is projected to be in and around the Moon. So what I quote in terms of half a million minutes was an initial bid into a government requirement on the civil side. I cannot quantify the top end of that, but I can quantify roughly the bottom end at about a half a million minutes of time. That does not include, like I mentioned, the PNT broadcast signal, which is an additional over and above the pay-by-the-minute model that we are anticipating.

Alex Preston (BOA): Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Just curious, going back to the National Security Golden Dome side of things, right? The additional AMDT-3 award supporting L3Harris. It is clear that you guys are gaining traction on the BUS side of things. I am curious, as these programs begin to continue to scale, is there appetite to get involved more on the payloads and really come to market as an end-to-end supplier? I guess maybe more broadly, what does the roadmap for that national security business look like given the recent wins?

>Steve Altemus: Yeah, very good. I think you will see us emerge as a prime contractor here. We do work with L3Harris as a sub to provide the BUS, which we are going to continue to do. But as we move into other opportunities, you will see us bidding as a prime on a lunar surveyor, supplying all the imagers for, and the BUS for mapping the Moon, and then integrating those data products, downlinking them through our networks, bringing them back to our data repository, and doing the analytics on those data products, and providing derived products and digital terrain maps of the Moon. As I think about this, the prime aspect of it is not just providing a BUS with the sensors, but integrating that BUS and the sensor into our platform of communications and analytics to provide the data products and information that the government is going to want.

>Pete McGrath: Yeah, just to comment. As you see us rolling out those ATPs that we are talking about and as they transition to contracts, there are some in that mix that we are a prime contractor on that you will see as we roll those out.

Austin Moeller (Canaccord Genuity): Hi, good morning. I was just wondering if you see an opportunity, given the recent additions to the ground stations and the ground network to support Department of the Air Force, U.S. Space Force programs in providing data uplink or downlink and TT&C as the growing U.S. Space Force fleet continues to expand.

>Steve Altemus: Morning, Austin. Yes, in fact, that's the case, and we've been having some discussions about that, not only here in the U.S., but in the U.K. We can bring down the full raw data stream, then patch that data stream to wherever that needs to go, to give it to any customers that are interested in looking at that data stream. So the network is available for users in the cislunar space arena and for space domain awareness. We're talking about that presently and actively with those customers.

Followup on NOVA-D planning:

Steve Altemus: Yeah. For Nova-D, that is our class of lander that is 500 kilograms to the surface of the Moon, of payload. That is currently essentially fully funded to take that development to flight and land on the Moon. The two areas that may take investment in CapEx and technology IRAD would be when you are talking about moving to a three-engine configuration with a fully gimbaled package of three main engines. That gets you to at least 1 metric ton delivery to the surface. Then NASA is calling for landers that can carry 2 to 5 metric tons to the surface. That would require an upgrade to the engine itself and maybe even an e-pump or electric pump that goes with that engine package.

Those are areas we are looking at now to provide a road map of where we are going to make technology investments in the future heavy cargo class. However, the 500-kilogram Nova-D is funded under contracts today, and there are opportunities, like I mentioned, to rebid that class of lander for yet a subsequent mission. So hopefully we could build two in parallel. So that is kind of what we are doing and coming up with that road map of where those technologies need to be matured to get to the heavier and heavier cargo, which will be an essential point or piece of CLPS 2.0.

Jeff Van Rhee (Craig-Hallum) on IM-4 timeline

>Steve Altemus: Yeah. IM-4 is still on the books for late 2027 and still on track. You heard us talk about EAC as we shift resources over from IM-3, which is nearing completion to IM-4. A slight upper there. Everything seems to be on track so far for IM-4.

Followup on free cash flow:

>Pete McGrath: We haven't guided yet on free cash flow, so we're not providing a formal date, although I will say that quarter over quarter, we've been improving gross profit. With the exception of the EAC this quarter, I think we're seeing good EBITDA growth as well. I think our near-term focus is EBITDA positive, then I think the next step is definitely moving into free cash flow positive.

Personal commentary: Overall, this was an EXTREMELY BULLISH call despite the headline numbers and the ATM overhang that will remain in place for a while, it sounds like they're set for at least the rest of the year before they tap into it again. The backlog and the pipeline confirms my own personal belief that Intuitive Machines is uniquely positioned, unlike any other company aside from SpaceX, at the intersection of the two biggest space investments in history: NASA's $30B Moon Base and the DoW's ($1T+) Golden Dome initiatives. Like other companies in this sector, there's that inflection point where the scale is tipped towards free cash flow and profitability and it's very close as they achieve positive EBITDA this year.

There were some very interesting tidbits from SpaceX call yesterday with direct implications for Intuitive Machines that may deserve some additional discussions. I know Elon Musk tends to exaggerate timelines and prospects but it's worth taking a closer look. The following is just my interpretation and welcome feedback. First, there was this comment from Musk on a followup question to Shotwell:

>Elon Musk

>CEO and Chief Engineer

>They're autonomous, and they do not need servicing. In the sort of what may seem the far future but will come faster than you think, using robots on the Moon to scale up manufacturing on the Moon, which I know it sounds like super sci-fi right now, but it's going to happen, will enable us to build the mass accelerator on the Moon. If you have a mass accelerator on the Moon, and you have solar and radiator production on the Moon, you can I know this sounds totally nuts, but you can probably scale to 1,000x the economy of Earth in terms of intelligence launched to space. Probably maybe even a million times. We are going to land a lot of tonnage on the Moon. We're going to build the factories on the Moon. The robots will be helpful with that. It's like, well, how much intelligence would you like as we grow towards being a Kardashev 2 scale civilization?

So my comment about that, is where does NSNS fit with all of that? Would SpaceX rely on IM's small satellites constellation or will they build their own? Will they be interoperable and if SpaceX, not NASA, is the driver of the lunar (1000x the economy of earth), where will companies like IM fit within that bigger picture. Obviously SpaceX cannot build everything themselves and they may need to acquire or partner expertise for building that infrastructure as NASA builds its Moon Base. Will they need landers that hop from one location to another carrying cargo, robots, and equipment? What about rovers and LTVs? This would be an awesome question to Steve Altemus on future earnings calls.

Then came a question about the Starship Human Landing System from an individual investor:

>Elon Musk

>CEO and Chief Engineer

>For Starship, obviously we need to make Starship super reliable for satellites before we put any people on board. We are expecting to have a very high launch rate and thus achieve a level of safety needed for humans very quickly, probably by the end of next year.

>Gwynne Shotwell

>President and COO

>As far as the milestones go, propellant transfer in orbit is critical to both our internal SpaceX as well as our HLS ambitions. Artemis III mission is next year. That's where we will dock with the Orion spacecraft. We will follow that up with a direct to lunar cargo mission, uncrewed. We want to put boots on the ground, boots on the moon in 2028.

Note that the comment about 'having boots on the ground in 2028' came from Gwynne Shotwell, not Musk. She's always measured and thoughtful. They haven't shown anything yet on their HLS and I know they're still trying to work all the Starship kinks out. So 2027 they dock with Orion under Artemis III, then maybe late 2027 or early 2028, they land the uncrewed mission.

What does that mean to IM? Well, Altus-1 will hopefully be up there and operational. Will SpaceX push for an accelerated deployment of the constellation? Will they be start deploying their own satellites into lunar orbit with that uncrewed mission? I know they like to do things their way but can't help but wonder if NASA pushes for some collaboration?

Then there's Blue Origin and their Mark landers. They know what SpaceX plans to do, they seem to be following up their footsteps whether with launch or connectivity. Do they have similar grandiose plans for the Moon?

I have to think Steve Altemus, Tim Crain, Kam Ghaffarian, and top management have to be having some serious strategic discussions about where they fit in all of this as SpaceX is not talking publicly about their plans now that they're no longer a private company.

NASA will host a news conference at 2 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, May 26, to share Moon Base plans and highlight progress toward a sustained presence on the lunar surface. The media briefing will take place at the agency’s Headquarters in Washington.
 
Leadership will discuss program progress, including new industry partners and mission plans. Subject matter experts will be available for one-on-one interviews after the news conference ends.
 
Watch live on NASA+ and the agency’s YouTube channel. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of online platforms, including social media.
 
Participants include:
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman
Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate
Carlos García-Galán, program executive, Moon Base 
 
Media unable to attend in person may ask questions by telephone. To participate in person or by phone, media must RSVP to the headquarters newsroom no later than 11 a.m. on May 26, at: hq-media@mail.nasa.gov. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online. 
 
NASA is advancing development of Moon Base, a long-term lunar exploration and infrastructure initiative designed to enable sustained human presence and expanded scientific and commercial activity at the lunar South Pole.
 
As part of the Golden Age of innovation and exploration, NASA will send astronauts on increasingly difficult missions to explore more of the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build on our foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars.

Highlights

Closed $800 million acquisition of Lanteris Space Systems to become a vertically integrated next-generation space prime contractor for commercial, civil and national security space initiatives

Signed definitive agreement in Q2 to acquire Goonhilly Earth Station and its COMSAT subsidiary to a create a space‑to‑ground data services network configured to support missions across LEO, MEO, GEO, cislunar, and deep space environments for communications, navigation, and data processing

Awarded $428.9 million in new contracts driven primarily by Space Development Agency Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture tranche 3 tracking layer and $180.4 million CLPS contract from NASA; this marks Intuitive Machines’ fifth CLPS task order, the most among all CLPS vendors and the first to require our larger cargo class (Nova-D) lunar lander

Contracted with U.S. Space Force in Q2 as a part of the Andromeda IDIQ contract with an anticipated ceiling value of $6.2 billion to expand space domain awareness capabilities through a constellation of maneuverable satellites designed to observe and track activity in geosynchronous orbit; the first revenue synergy award to combine Intuitive Machines and Lanteris capabilities

Submitted proposals for CLPS and LTV in support of NASA’s Ignition initiative priorities; awaiting award decisions in the coming weeks while additional proposals are underway for CLPS 2.0, Space Reactor‑1 Freedom, and other Moon base infrastructure initiatives

Financial Highlights

Achieved record quarterly revenue of $186.7 million, nearly 3x of prior year driven by the Lanteris acquisition along with continued CLPS, OMES, and NSNS execution; Lanteris acquisition closed on January 13, 2026; reported Q1 revenue does not include 12 days of Lanteris, which was approximately $13 million

Reported record profitability with $2.7 million positive Adjusted EBITDA

Ended Q1 with record backlog of $1.1 billion, an $842 million increase from year-end 2025 driven primarily by the acquisition of Lanteris along with Intuitive Machines’ fifth CLPS task order

Mr. Altemus continued, “The next phase of the space economy will not be defined only by who reaches new destinations. It will be defined by who can build the infrastructure, connect it reliably, and operate it at scale. That is what Intuitive Machines is building.”

Outlook

Full-year 2026 revenue of $900 million - $1 billion

Full-year 2026 Adjusted EBITDA positive