The company's IM-1 mission lander shortly after its launch on February 15, 2024.
Intuitive machines
Actions of Intuitive machines jumped for the third straight trading session, surpassing its post-SPAC debut price, as the company's first mission completed new milestones as it approached the moon.
Intuitive Machines shares rose as much as 65% in Tuesday trading to an intraday high of $12.05, above the $10.03 per share price the stock was trading at after the company completed its merger. with SPAC in February 2023.
As recently as last month, the stock was trading near $2 per share. Since launching its maiden lunar mission last week, the company's stock price has more than doubled.
The mission, known as IM-1, launched on a SpaceX rocket and has since completed several of the 16 milestones that Intuitive Machines identified as key to mission success. One of the key milestones came when the lander, named “Odysseus,” successfully fired its engine for the first time. The lander has used the engine to adjust its trajectory and stay on target.
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In a series of daily updates since Friday, the Texas-based lunar company said its cargo lander “continues to be in excellent health” and is preparing to enter lunar orbit on Wednesday. The company noted that entering lunar orbit, also known as “lunar orbit insertion,” will be the “biggest challenge of the mission to date.”
The company is on track to make its lunar landing attempt at 5:49 p.m. ET on Thursday, he said.
Intuitive Machines and NASA leaders show a mockup of the company's Nova-C lunar lander during a presentation on May 31, 2019.
Aubrey Gemignani/NASA
The IM-1 lander carries 12 government and commercial payloads, six of which are for NASA under a $118 million contract.
Intuitive Machines' mission represents the second under NASA's Commercial Lunar Cargo Services initiative, which aims to use low-cost private spacecraft to deliver science projects and cargo to the moon with increasing regularity in support of the crew program. Artemis from the agency.
Both governments and private companies have made more than 50 lunar landing attempts with mixed success since the first attempts in the early 1960s, and the record remains shaky even in the modern era.
Last month, the American company Astrobotic launched its first lunar mission, but encountered problems shortly after launch. The flight was interrupted and a lunar landing attempt failed.
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