Q1 2026 Earnings Call — May 14, 2026
Analyst (B. Riley Securities): Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. So great to see all the progress across the board. I was wondering if you could give some more detail on where you're at in the development stage for the Nebula orbital transfer vehicle. Is that in CDR or approaching it? And is this another platform that you envision you could leverage for, you know, future Andromeda task orders for geo operations in, you know, in addition to actually building the satellites?
Executive (Title): Good morning, Griffin. It's good to hear from you. Yes, OTV, Orbital Transfer Vehicle, which is our nebula, as we call it, has passed through CDR with the customer, and we're awaiting phase three, which is a full-scale development and flight of that vehicle. We expect multiple copies of this Orbital Transfer Vehicle in the future to support national security space in geo and cislunar space. Certainly. So it's a very specific, high-thrust, very capable cryogenic propulsive stage that can move into trajectories and orbits well out to 2 million kilometers.
Analyst (Deutsche Bank): Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking our questions. You mentioned Orbital Data Center briefly I think earlier. There's clearly a lot of interest I think in the industry and I think a couple of companies in particular have been very vocal. How do you envision Lanteris potentially using its capabilities to take part in this endeavor?
Executive (Title): Good morning, Edison. Intuitive Machines as a whole, as a combined company, has some incredible capabilities that we're thinking through as an offering for orbital data centers. The build portion of our company, the production, certainly the power propulsive element, the most highest power generating spacecraft ever built, can be reproduced at 60,000 watts. We're already thinking about you know, 100 kilowatts in terms of power generation. Our capabilities as a company, thinking about thermal management and managing the heat load of edge computing and the need for heat rejection in high-speed computing orbital data centers is critical. And as a space company, we have that skill to manage that. And then if you think about Connect and the network platform that we're building, the ground segment, included with the data relay satellites, including the geosynchronous birds we can put into place. All of that connect operation and the network segment services bring not only a capability to build a data center, but actually to connect it and operate it like no other company can. So we'll be looking for strategic partnerships in this area. We'll be looking for crystallizing our offerings in this area as we move forward. And so the future is pretty exciting when we're thinking about these new endeavors for the company.
Analyst (Deutsche Bank): Understood. And just to follow up on the financial side, is there any update on the contribution from Lentaris for the full year? If we just kind of use the run rate number that you gave, it seems to be around $400 million, but is that accurate?
Executive (Title): We report as a single segment at this point. And, you know, without it, we've worked to integrate the company into one company. That's how we'll report. And you won't see a distinction between Intuitive Machines and Lanteris. The data from 2025 has been published. That gave you kind of the run rate in the past. And looking forward, you'll see the top line from Intuitive Machines.
Analyst (Cantor Fitzgerald): Hey guys, this is Anand for Andres. Congrats on the quarter and thanks for taking our question. I just wanted to expand a little bit about the Andromeda IDIQ that was touched on a little bit earlier in the call. Given your selection as one of the awardees under that program, I was wondering maybe if you can discuss what capabilities differentiated the combined intuitive machines and land terrace platform in the selection process, maybe what the economics here look like, and how do you see the positioning of the company in space domain awareness over the next several years given this?
Executive (Title): Thank you. Anand, good morning. Yes, the Andromeda procurement, that IDIQ, it was a combined company offering. Our ability to put things in orbit with precision through the acquisition of kinetics, that orbit determination and precision trajectory management definitely comes into space domain awareness and putting assets where you want them to be and knowing where they are. Then you combine that with the 1300 series bus, the production supply chain, the reliability of that bus over time. And then you think about the kinds of things that we do with satellite servicing, with robotics in space, gives us a very strong offering. You know, the fact that we've already been out to the moon, orbiting the moon, landing on the moon, flying those precision trajectories, getting into orbit with precision, all of that feeds putting assets in space right where you need to be and the assets that are highly reliable. So that was the offering, and that's what – they recognized, and I believe that's the reason we got the award we did.
Analyst (Cantor Fitzgerald): Gotcha. Appreciate all the color, Steve. And maybe as a follow-up, with the announced acquisition of Goonhilly and ComSat, which was a key focus on the call, I was wondering maybe can you explain how owning an additional ground station changes your ability to deliver the end-to-end space data services across lunar, cislunar, geo, and other applications, and how does that affect your capabilities and economics regarding your NSNS contract?
Executive (Title): Yeah, that's a good question. The Goonhilly Earth Station and its subsidiary, ComSat, provide up to 44 communication dishes that can reach out to 2 million kilometers, which is the edge of deep space. This acquisition gives us the ability to set up through Goonhilly leadership of a global ground segment network and provide network segment services and the particular APIs that are needed for scheduling for multiple customers. And so having that in-house gives us the expertise to be able to integrate this global network that we're putting together on the ground here on Earth. So it's a very strategic in terms of near space network, and providing that service across the government and to commercial customers and international customers. Being based in the U.K. gives us access to ESA as well as what we have in the United States for NASA. So all around just a perfect fit. They're a very well-established team and incredibly competent, and so that's why we selected them.
Analyst (Canaccord Genuity): So just my first question, I understand Andromeda is a multi-vendor IDIQ, but how many geocom sats do you expect to build from uh for that program and do you expect those satellites to have a replacement cycle after the after the 10-year performance period just given they're in geo?
Executive (Title): Good morning, Austin. What we know so far is we're in essentially a design competition and so the first part of this award is to come up with the design for a highly maneuverable geostationary orbit satellite. Highly maneuverable, agile satellites is the direction that we see the geo market going. And so this is a good entry point for us in national security space. Again, with our reliability, we build satellites that last 15 years in orbit very reliably and have a supply chain to feed that. So like I said earlier, so we're not yet sure what the order book will look like after the designs are completed. I do believe it's multi-award in terms of the future satellite purchases and won't just be one vendor. They did increase the value over 10 years up to, what, $6.24 billion. So we know there'll be multiple satellites and certainly anticipate a replacement cycle. But I don't have any more specificity on the orders or the replacement cycle as the designs aren't yet completed from the awardees.
Analyst (Canaccord Genuity): Okay. And are you able to comment on the RFP and bid process for the light version of LTV and how the timing of how that's expected to elapse to contract awards this year and lead into a follow-on for a heavier or medium version?
Executive (Title): So during the NASA ignition event, they restructured the task orders under the base contract for the three vendors that were awarded. They asked us to modify the LTV design to survive, to make it smaller and survive a single year instead of the larger version, which would last 10 years. That risk was identified by the administrator as too big a first step. And so they wanted to give the vendor pool an opportunity to walk up on this autonomous capability, build a smaller, simpler version, lessen some of the crew requirements in terms of how to operate it with crew. And so they came out with a new task order for crewed and uncrewed version. We had to submit a proposal late April, I believe, and the award NASA has indicated will be on May 22nd, we believe, that's the latest we've heard, for accrued and uncrewed. There's an option to buy multiple versions of those, so we'll see how the selection goes. There is a plan in the moon base to, which is, what 30 billion over seven years moving forward. I believe it's seven years to develop heavier and heavier cargo deliveries. And we think that that might include multiple future awards of LTV and they can be increasing capability also over this 15 year contract. So we'll wait and see what the next task orders look like and are cautiously optimistic about the awards in May for LTV. Very exciting. Looking forward to it.
Analyst (Clear Street): Okay, thanks for taking my question. Can you just comment on maybe the competitive environment for the LTV? Has that changed? Are there more bidders now coming in from, say, where the landscape was at the end of 2025?
Executive (Title): Yes, good morning, Greg. The landscape remains the same. The initial contract, I believe it was a $4.6 billion contract, was awarded to three vendors. Each vendor received a design award that lasted one year to come up with an LTV design. Then we bid, the three of us vendors bid on an LTV delivery and demonstration mission. That task order was restructured to bring a crude and uncrewed version up to the moon and lasts for a year versus 10 years. The same three vendors that won the initial award are the ones that are in the competition to for the modified LTV award coming up here at the end of May. So the landscape looks the same in this competitive environment with no additional bidders added to the vendor pool.
Analyst (Clear Street): Great. And I just get one more. Financially, the CapEx, that was around $9 million tied to the satellite. Should that roughly round out to $30 million for the year?
Executive (Title): Sure. Yes, I think we're going to see as we start building out. We have one we're flying this year. We're going to fly two more next year and two more the year after that. So I think you'll see the values grow a little bit to account for the increased volume in satellite build going forward.
Analyst (Stifel): Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question, and congratulations on the progress. We were excited about the new acquisition. That's a long history there. Can you talk a little bit about how that deal came together and any more details you can share on how we can model that moving forward in the second half?
Executive (Title): Yes, in February of 2025, we put together an M&A strategy of the kind of capabilities we wanted to add to the company. You saw us now with this is the third. Kinetics was the first, Land Terrace was the second, and Goonhilly was the third. This capability, we've had a strategic partnership with Goonhilly for a number of years now. They were instrumental, if you recall, in mission one. When we sat quietly in the control room and we were waiting for the heartbeat of Odysseus, our Nova Sea lander on the South Pole, it was Goonhilly who acquired the signal from our radios on the South Pole of the moon. So they have been instrumental partners with us in our success to the moon, and it only made sense to broaden our relationship and integrate it and set them up as the leader of our global ground segment. So we expect them to continue and will continue to grow and feed the market that we've captured in cislunar space with the Near Space Network contract. So it's a growth opportunity for Goonhilly, and it's strengthening our capabilities in intuitive machines.
Analyst (Stifel): That's great. And then maybe I'll just ask another one on the backlog timing. So when we compare what you're disclosing now as of March 31st with what you disclosed previously as of February 28th, and the backlog increase, it looks like the incremental awards you got added to backlog are actually additive to 2026. So it looks like it's near-term work. Is that the right way to look at it, or is there any other – color we can take on how the quarterly cadence for the rest of the year might shape up?
Executive (Title): Yeah, I would say that they are primarily, you see a lot of near-term. I'd say over the next 24 months, a lot of that revenue hits on some of the near-term things like the tranche deliveries. CT4 is a little bit further out. We talked about 60% to 65% of that backlog would be seen this year. There is also additional awards we're expecting, which would also bring in revenue in the second half of the year. So that's what we're looking at in terms of backlog conversion as well as potential opportunities on revenue. One other thing I'd add to the future potential awards that Pete mentioned is that we did talk about a flurry of procurements that came out as a result of the NASA ignition event. We talked about the LTV late May award potential. There's another CLPS mission called CS8, which could be multiple lander awards in a single procurement. We expect that in mid-June or so. Also, we're working on a proposal for the TDRS, Tracking Data Relay Satellite System, which is a draft RFP is out. We're working on a proposal. And the other one is The C-band clearing at the geosynchronous orbit there, they're retiring some of the upper portion of the C-band frequency, and so there'll be some KA-band satellites to bid on, and those awards will be happening over the summer, we believe, commercially. So quite a bit of catalysts coming up in the future on future awards that'll add to the backlog, we hope. Busy business development team.
Analyst (KeyBank Capital Markets): Hey, good morning. I just wanted to follow up on clips in the NASA's ignition program calling for a potential monthly lunar cadence, potentially 30 or so landings before the end of the decade, and you just talked about CS8 in mid-June. Do you expect to start seeing these contracts and revenue come through for these missions in the very near term, just given how you typically begin recognizing revenue a few years ahead of the mission? Are these coming in weeks or months, or could they potentially be recognized a bit closer to the mission than you would typically recognize them historically?
Executive (Title): Thanks for the question. What we see is a request to build in 24 months. We put in a CS8 proposal, which could select one, two, or three lunar landers out of a single proposal and multiple awards. We've scaled our production, leveraging the production capability of Lantaris, coupled with Intuitive Machines, gives us the ability to produce multiple landers in 24-month cycles at a time in parallel. So that will be near-term. The longer-term version of this is called CLPS 2.0, and that's the next 10 years of CLPS. I think they've set aside $6 billion for Eclipse 2.0, where we move towards heavier and heavier cargo deliveries to the moon. And so you'll see our Nova D and Supernova variants of our lander come into play here in the coming years. We expect that procurement to be later in the year. The draft, I think, is in work, but the award will be maybe in the November timeframe. So that'll hit in subsequent years while we're still finishing out the Eclipse 1.0 budget bucket.
Analyst (KeyBank Capital Markets): Great. And then is there anything that needs to happen to scale the business further from a production standpoint to meet these exponentially higher demand levels for landers? Is that going on right now? And how quickly can you make one?
Executive (Title): Yeah, we've looked hard at the process. We are in the process of streamlining the And one of the things that's very competitive from an intuitive machine standpoint is the strength of the supply chain. The number of spacecraft that we're involved in and building exercises the supply chain in a very positive way. And so we can get some benefits on delivery schedules as a result of the volume that runs through the supply chain. So that's really kind of how we've been looking at it, plus improving the production techniques and the ground support equipment that allows us to process multiple vehicles at the same time. You know, with our current expansion here in Houston, doubling our capacity in facilities over the past couple of years, and then out at – California land terrace with over 600,000 square feet of production space really does allow us to step up quickly and respond to the needs of the customer.
Analyst (Craig Hallam Capital Group): Hey, this is Daniel on for Jeff. Good morning, Steve, Pete. Most of my questions here have been asked. On this AMD T3 proposal for 18 to 45 spacecraft, I don't think I've seen that referenced before. T3, I don't know, is that another way of referencing the Tranche 3 tracking layer? Just if you could expand on what that opportunity is that you're anticipating there.
Executive (Title): Yeah, so the SDA Tranche 3 tracking layer is what you've been hearing about. You've been hearing about a transport layer and you've been hearing about a tracking layer. Independent of that, there's another series of tracking satellites that are being requested that is not part of the tracking layer associated with the Space Development Agency.
Analyst (Craig Hallam Capital Group): Okay, and is that something where you would potentially go prime on that and deliver that directly, or this is something where you're expecting L3Harris to potentially be bidding on that and that you could build the buses for that again? Or what's the opportunity there?
Executive (Title): Yeah, this is, again, all the great work that we've done together between Matunda Machines or Land Terrace and L3 Harris. This is a continuation of that relationship and extending that relationship even further.
Analyst (Bank of America): Hey, good morning. Thank you for taking the question. I just wanted to go back to Goonhilly. Maybe beyond NSNS, I'm curious if or where you might see synergies on future contract awards or if there are broadly other opportunities or capabilities that you see yourself as more capable of bidding for now than previously with that.
Executive (Title): Let me think about that. What we really had focused on was get the ground segment in our space to ground network established and built out, as someone said on the call, as a platform. And so then how you use that platform is really the growth opportunity anchored by the Near Space Network contract, which is 10 years $4.8 billion, gives us a clear market potential there. And that is only expected to grow across other government agencies and commercially. So the addition alone was to help us with the ground segment for the Near Space Network. But using that network over time is really where we're going to go together with world-class leadership in space-to-ground communications.
Currently, we see the revenue of Goonhilly Air Station around $14 million annually, so it's not that significant, but coupled with Intuitive Machines' market, we see incredible growth. The other aspect of Goonhilly is, as Steve mentioned, it's over 44 dishes both in the UK and in the United States, those are not only large dishes that can talk to the moon, but they're dishes that actually can also talk to LEO and GEO. And as we start putting together full service opportunities like TDRS, it comes into play as to how we integrate that ground network with our service offering as we go forward. I guess the other point, as I'm thinking through the question, if you recall, I believe last week, quarter or in February, I spoke about a strategic partnership with Leonardo at Telespatio to dovetail the Moonlight constellation with the Intuitive Machines data relay constellation. So the work where we combine the ESA work or European work with U.S. work, Goonhilly is a great bridge for that relationship.
Analyst (Bank of America): Got it. Thanks. Just to follow up, you mentioned sort of more broadly on the M&A roadmap. This is sort of the latest in your sort of plan. Where else are you seeing opportunities for M&A? Is it still sort of bringing in key systems more vertically, or are you thinking about horizontal space exposure opportunities? Just kind of curious if you could provide any update there on where you're looking at opportunities.
Executive (Title): We continue the effort to look at M&A opportunistically. We laid out a plan and executed against the plan from February 25 to today. And so taking another hard look, we'll look at things as where the market steers us. I talked a little bit about orbital data centers, talking with strategic partners. We'll think about strategic financing. We'll think about M&A when it comes to those offerings as those crystallize.
Analyst (Roth Capital): Hi, Steve. Hi, Pete. Just trying to dig into the land terrorist opportunity now within Intuitive Machines. The Demand for agile spacecraft sounds very comprehensible in the government defense world. I'm wondering how that might extend into the commercial world, that feature, that capability of these spacecraft, or whether it's really more of a defense play.
Executive (Title): Suji, good morning. I think it's a combination of defense or national security space in RGXX and other programs that are coming for highly maneuverable geosatellite birds. If you recall, we spent a lot of time over the past couple of years talking about satellite servicing and the OSAM mission, the On-Orbit Satellite Servicing and Manufacturing. That ability to couple robotics with a highly reliable bus. Recall that that OSAM bus was built by Maxar at the time, which is Land Terrace and now Intuitive Machines. So we have an inherent capability to do satellite servicing robotically. And so as that market develops in the future, that'll be a potential commercial entry point for us that leverages the same kind of technology that we're talking about here in RGXX.
Analyst (Roth Capital): Okay, great. Very helpful, Steve. And then maybe, you know, I remember from the first few missions, the challenges, obviously, And then I'm wondering if you could draw a line from that to the future where you have Goonhilly in-house versus a partner and these dishes, and also have lunar satellites orbiting, helping. Just the, obviously nothing is certain with a lunar landing, but the increased confidence versus before and after would be very helpful to understand.
Executive (Title): Yeah, we've done a lot of work with Goonhilly and others, including the Deep Space Network for NASA to improve our ability to perform orbit determination to get into lunar orbit precisely. We've had the acquisition of kinetics, again, who are masters at flying trajectories. You know, they've flown to every, done a mission to every planet in the solar system except for Neptune, I believe. So very exotic trajectories and exotic navigation techniques to get to where they need to be. And then you take that with a, couple that with a world-class ground station like Goonhilly Earth Station, you now can really synchronize and use that as a testbed to just test out the new technologies for ground segment communications to space. So you have a gold standard that you can develop capabilities that will help us integrate in a more uniform way the global network that we're putting together on the ground. And so I really use it as a benchmark and a gold standard site to continuously improve on ground segment communications and navigation.
Executive (Title): Thank you, Suji. There are no further questions
at this time.
And that concludes the Q&A session of this call. I'll hand it back over to Steve Artemis for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.
Executive (Title): Well, thank you, everyone, for your questions today. I appreciate them. Give me an opportunity to answer them. As you heard, quarter one was a strong start to the year and a record quarter for Intuitive Machines. We look forward to continued execution and award decisions in the coming weeks. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for joining, and that concludes today's conference call. All participants may now disconnect. Thank you.