Intuitive Machines is making ready for its first lunar mission to the moon’s south pole within the third quarter of this yr, whereas additionally dealing with a protest to a significant NASA contract win, executives informed traders Thursday.
The corporate has made “vital progress” on testing for the inaugural IM-1 mission, Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus stated throughout a first-quarter earnings name. He added that he expects the lander to be on the launch pad in “mid-to-late Q3.” Throughout that mission, the corporate will try to land its spacecraft, Nova-C, on the lunar floor — and would be the first completely non-public firm to take action. The corporate is presently assessing the touchdown spot on the moon for a follow-up mission.
Intuitive Machines went public by way of a merger with a special-purpose acquisition firm in February. The corporate reported first-quarter revenues of $18.2 million, with a money steadiness of $46.8 million as of the top of the quarter. Moreover, Intuitive Machines reported a backlog of $156.1 million, of which $107.7 million is anticipated to show into income earlier than the yr’s finish.
“We’ve all the time been and can proceed to be a capital environment friendly firm,” CFO Erik Sallee stated. “We’ll allocate capital to the very best risk-adjusted returns in a disciplined method. As a non-public Firm, we have been principally self funded, so we all know learn how to reside inside our means.”
The corporate additionally disclosed that it was dealing with a protest to its win of a $719 million NASA contract, although Altemus informed traders that protests are a reasonably widespread incidence inside the procurement course of.
“We all know from the statistics that lower than 10% of these protests are literally overturned, so we now have excessive confidence in our price choices to the federal government,” Altemus stated. “We’re assured that after we get by this 100-day protest interval for the [Government Accountability Office] that the award will stand.”
Science Purposes Worldwide Company filed the protest towards the award on Might 8. The agency didn’t make a replica of the protest out there to view, nor does the Authorities Accountability Workplace — the federal workplace the place corporations might protest contract awards — submit them on its web site.
NASA awarded the $719 million, five-year contract to a three way partnership of Intuitive Machines and KBR named House Networks Resolution. The contract, Omnibus Multidiscipline Engineering Companies (OMES) III, is supposed to broadly fund engineering work associated to the Joint Polar Satellite tv for pc System and different NASA tasks. NASA introduced the successful bidder on April 19.
Supplied that GAO adjudicates the protest in Intuitive Machines’ favor, the corporate stated it’s going to start work on the contract within the fourth quarter. With it, the lunar firm’s full-year income might are available in between $174 million and $268 million.
The corporate, which is listed underneath the ticker image $LUNR, was buying and selling at $8.25 by shut of markets Thursday.
