Andres Sheppard watched the market move the way an analyst can only hope it will: quickly and in his direction. Cantor Fitzgerald’s Sheppard raised his price target on Intuitive Machines by 65% to $43 per share and said he was "confident" the company would win a NASA contract to build a Lunar Terrain Vehicle this week, and Intuitive Machines stock rose 17.2% through 11:20 a.m. ET on Tuesday.
The jump added to a runaway run: the shares have risen 240% over the past 52 weeks. The immediate numbers behind the surge are small by comparison to what investors are betting on. Cantor Fitzgerald’s confidence points to a contract that could be worth up to $4.6 billion over time; the company also announced two new NASA awards totaling $20 million — $15.5 million and $4.5 million — payable over three years.
Intuitive Machines itself has given investors reasons to look forward. After its recent earnings release the company said it expected to approach $1 billion in revenue this year and that it would be "profitable" on an adjusted EBITDA basis. Management has emphasized the longer-term programs it is building into its backlog: late in 2024 NASA awarded the company the Near Space Network contract valued at $4.8 billion, a deal that tasks Intuitive Machines with deploying lunar relay satellites and providing communications and navigation services between Earth and the moon.
The two modest awards announced this week are concrete work but not the kind of cash that explains a 17.2% one-day move. Those contracts name Intuitive Machines as the prime contractor operating the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the ShadowCam camera aboard the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, and they hand the company the data to provide orbital and surface navigation services across government and commercial exploration efforts.
That gap — between small, confirmed contracts and much larger potential prizes — is the tension in the market. Intuitive Machines has won five Commercial Lunar Payload Services contracts to date and executed two; it became the first American company to land a spacecraft on the moon in 2024, though both Nova-C landers toppled over after landing. The Near Space Network award is widely regarded inside the company as the main long-term driver because it could bring in more over 10 years than the firm has ever generated in total.
Investors are also factoring in broader industry momentum. Analysts and traders have pointed to excitement around a high-profile SpaceX public listing as one of the factors lifting Intuitive Machines’ shares, and potential defense work adds another speculative layer: the U.S. Space Force’s Andromeda space domain awareness program could be worth anywhere from $1.8 billion to $6.2 billion over 10 years, although 14 other companies are competing for pieces of that work.
The practical effect is that today's price movement leaves two clear readings. One is optimistic: market participants are pricing in a string of award wins — the Lunar Terrain Vehicle, the Near Space Network follow-through and potential defense contracts — that would justify a far higher valuation. The other is cautious: the fresh $15.5 million and $4.5 million awards are too small on their own to move the share price materially, and several larger opportunities remain unawarded or contested.
What happens next is straightforward and consequential. If NASA formally awards the Lunar Terrain Vehicle this week as Cantor Fitzgerald expects, the stock rally will look like validation of future revenue growth and the company’s pivot from launch-and-lunar demonstrations to sustained services and infrastructure. If the contract does not materialize, the market will have to recalibrate expectations against a backlog that — despite a major $4.8 billion contract — still leaves much of the company's upside conditional on future awards.
Lunr
