Intuitive Machines' Nova-C lunar lander is on display at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.
NASA
shares Intuitive machines The company's stock jumped 16% in trading on Friday after the company's first successful landing on the moon.
Intuitive Machines' Nova-C lunar lander, known as “Odysseus,” on Thursday became the first specially developed spacecraft to touch down on the lunar surface — as well as the first American spacecraft to softly touch down on the lunar surface in more than 50 years. Years.
The company, based in Houston, Texas, confirmed that the IM-1 lander was standing upright and sending data to Earth.
“Odysseus has found his new home,” Tim Crane, chief technology officer and IM-1 mission manager at Intuitive Machines, said Thursday evening from the company's mission control center.
Intuitive Machines stock initially rose 40% before paring gains on heavy trading volume to close at $9.59 per share. The company's market value is about $1 billion.
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The company's shares have risen over the past month as excitement builds in the lead-up to the IM-1 mission and its progress. Intuitive Machines went public via SPAC a year ago and shares have steadily fallen to all-time lows near $2 in January.
Intuitive Machines stock for the last 5 days.
Wall Street analysts stressed to CNBC before the drop that the unprecedented nature of the event could lead to volatile trading momentum.
“We've never seen a publicly traded company pass [a moon landing attempt]. “This is new, not only for investors, but for us analysts as well,” Cantor Fitzgerald's Andris Sheppard said before the drop.
In a note to investors after the drop, Cantor Fitzgerald increased his price target for Intuitive Machines stock to $13 per share from $4 per share.
“In our view, this validates the company's technology and adds significant credibility to the business. As such, we believe Intuitive Machines is now very well positioned to continue to benefit from the growing commercial space economy and subsequent launches,” Sheppard wrote. The memo.
The IM-1 “Odysseus” lander in lunar orbit on February 21, 2024.
Intuitive machines
“Odysseus is alive and well,” Intuitive Machines said in a statement Friday morning, noting that the lander is charging its solar panels.
“Flight controllers communicate and command the vehicle to download scientific data,” the company said.
The company and NASA plan to hold a press conference at 5 p.m. ET on Friday.
The Odysseus lander carried 12 government and commercial payloads — six of them for NASA under a $118 million contract through the agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, initiative.
Intuitive Machines has already won two additional CLPS contracts for future landing missions, and IM-2 is expected to launch as early as the second half of this year.
In addition, the company holds part of a five-year, $719 million contract to provide engineering services to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. Analysts expect Goddard's contract to be worth about $11 million per month in revenue for Intuitive Machines, with Cantor Fitzgerald estimating the company will generate about $338 million in revenue for fiscal 2024.
