Shares of space technology provider Intuitive Machines rocketed Wednesday after the company announced another contract with NASA.
The stock surged 38% to close at $7.47 a share, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were off 0.3%. Wednesday’s gain put shares up almost 200% year to date.
The rise comes after shares dropped 5.6% on Tuesday. That dip might look large, but shares have been volatile since the start of September, gaining almost 16% through Tuesday. In late August, Intuitive Machines said it had been awarded a $117 million contract to deliver six science and technology payloads to the Moon’s South Pole.
The numbers for the latest contract could dwarf that amount, potentially reaching some $4.8 billion over 10 years. Intuitive will provide “communication and navigation services for missions in the near space region, which extends from Earth’s surface to beyond the Moon.”
The contract is huge for the company. Wall Street projects 2024 and 2025 sales of $223 million and $371 million, respectively.
“This contract marks an inflection point in Intuitive Machines’ leadership in space communications and navigation,” said CEO Steve Altemus. “We’re pleased to partner with NASA, as one team, to support the Artemis campaign and endeavors to expand the lunar economy.”
Intuitive burst onto investors’ screens after launching its Odysseus lander in February. That became the first soft landing on the moon for a U.S. entity in some 50 years. Odysseus landed on the moon autonomously—the first-ever such landing for a U.S. company.
Intuitive “established itself as the leading commercial delivery entity with the first U.S. landing on the Moon since the 1970s earlier this year,” wrote Benchmark analyst Josh Sullivan in a Wednesday report. “Now with the [contract] win, Intuitive Machines has established itself as the backbone of lunar data transmission.”
He rates shares Buy and has a $10 price target for the stock. Canaccord analyst Austin Moeller rates shares Buy and has an $11 target price for the stock.
He called the deal “transformational” in a Wednesday report, adding that the company will receive an initial $150 million from NASA for the performance period beginning Oct. 1.
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