HOUSTON, May 9, 2026, 10:07 CDT
- Intuitive Machines finished Friday at $28.97, climbing 20.2%. That move followed an 8.4% drop the previous day.
- First-quarter results are expected before the market opens on May 14, the company said.
- NASA-backed lunar projects are in the spotlight, with investors also eyeing a sharp 2026 revenue goal and fresh swings in trading.
Intuitive Machines shot up 20.2% Friday, bouncing hard to close at $28.97—well above Thursday’s $24.11 finish. The Houston-based space-infrastructure firm is set to report first-quarter earnings in just a few days, drawing renewed attention.
The date’s set: Intuitive Machines plans to drop first-quarter results on May 14, before the bell. The earnings call kicks off at 8:30 a.m. ET. That’s the marker for investors eyeing whether the lunar-lander contender can actually wring stronger numbers from its hefty government contract backlog.
The bar set by the company isn’t low. Back in March, it projected 2026 revenue somewhere between $900 million and $1 billion, along with positive adjusted EBITDA—a metric that strips out interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, and several other expenses. As of the end of February, backlog stood at roughly $943 million, representing contracted work still pending as revenue.
Options traders are positioned for a sharp move, with TipRanks’ options tool pointing to an expected 24.49% swing in either direction after the report. KeyBanc analyst Michael Leshock bumped his price target up to $27, and Roth Capital’s Suji Desilva moved his up to $35, both maintaining bullish calls on the stock, according to TipRanks.
Listed space stocks saw heavy action. Rocket Lab shares soared 34.2% after the launch and space-systems firm posted a record $200.3 million in first-quarter revenue and reported its backlog hit $2.2 billion. Planet Labs, meanwhile, finished up 10.8% on Friday.
NASA is still the big driver for Intuitive Machines. The space agency handed the company a $180.4 million Commercial Lunar Payload Services contract back in March—Intuitive Machines is set to deliver seven payloads to the lunar South Pole, aiming for a 2030 landing. Under CLPS, NASA opts to purchase lunar transport from private firms rather than developing the hardware on its own.
NASA’s Joel Kearns put it plainly: the goal is “enabling commercial lunar landings” and getting ready for crewed missions near the South Pole. So the contract’s not just a single shipment—it’s a step in NASA’s broader push to make trips to the Moon less of an exception and more business as usual. NASA
Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus described the award as moving the company closer to infrastructure that can be used repeatedly. Back in March, the company highlighted his comments on the “scalability and flexibility” of its systems—qualities he said were necessary to support more frequent Artemis missions. Intuitive Machines
Ownership chatter has cropped up around the rally as well. On May 6, a filing with the SEC revealed Once Capital Management owned 240,000 shares of Intuitive Machines Class A at the close of Q1, a stake valued near $4.45 million.
Director and 10% owner Kamal Ghaffarian’s related entities unloaded two blocks, a combined 141,909 Class A shares, on May 4, according to another filing. The sales followed a conversion of common units and were carried out under a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan—a standard pre-set arrangement for insiders, as the filing noted.
Still, risks are hanging over Intuitive Machines. The April prospectus flags a laundry list: postponed launches, failed liftoffs, heavy dependence on a few customers, possible snags in government funding, and the fact that its lunar missions lean on just one launch provider. Any of those, the company warns, could dent performance.
The bigger issue now skips the moon talk: can Intuitive Machines actually deliver first-quarter results strong enough to justify a stock priced as if the NASA pipeline, defense projects, and acquisition plans will all hit their marks?
