Shares of Intuitive Machines (LUNR) , the Houston space-exploration company, plummeted 24% on Friday, March 7, following confirmation that its second lunar lander, Athena, failed to land fully upright during a mission.
"We don't believe we're in the correct attitude on the surface of the moon yet again," Chief Executive Steve Altemus said at a news conference.
The announcement echoed a similar mishap from the company’s first lunar attempt in 2024, reigniting concerns about its technical reliability and long-term prospects in NASA’s ambitious Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.
Intuitive Machines stock surged in February 2024 when its first lander, Odysseus, became the first privately built spacecraft to achieve a soft landing on the moon. This marked a historic return for the U.S. to the lunar surface after more than five decades.
However, Odysseus tipped over shortly after touchdown when a landing leg failed.
The Athena mission, launched Feb. 26, 2025, targeted Mons Mouton, a plateau near the lunar south pole. It carries NASA technology that will measure resources from lunar soil.
This is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative and Artemis campaign to establish a long-term lunar presence.
But history repeated itself. The lander's surface mission "will be off-nominal because we're not getting everything that we had asked for in terms of power generation, communications, etc.," Altemus said.
“Landing on the moon is extremely hard,” said Nicola Fox, NASA’s associate director at the Science Missions Directorate. “Intuitive Machines was aiming to land in a place that humanity has not been before.”
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Intuitive Machines stock under pressure
At last check Intuitive Machines' shares were off 23% at $8.67. That pegs the stock down 52% this year and up 59% from a year earlier.
The stock soared by a factor of 7 last year, having finished 2023 at $2.56 and 2024 at $18.16.
Intuitive Machines is a Cathie Wood pick. She purchased 140,518 shares on Jan. 15.
Related: Cathie Wood buys $8 million of tumbling tech stock
The company secured multiple contracts with NASA. These include a $116.9 million award in August 2024 to deliver six NASA payloads to the moon's south pole and a September 2024 pact valued at as much as $4.82 billion for communications and navigation services extending from Earth's surface to beyond the moon.
Last November, Intuitive Machines reported its Q3 financials, including revenue more than quadrupling from a year earlier to $58.5 million.
The company ended Q3 with $89.6 million in cash, the highest quarter-end cash balance in its history.
Intuitive Machines is expected to report fiscal-Q4 earnings on March 24.
Analysts unveil new stock price target for Intuitive Machines
Canaccord Genuity lowered its price target for Intuitive Machines to $22 from $26 while maintaining a buy rating. The firm says, however, that the selloff on this event is "overdone" as it already has the next two missions under contract with NASA, according to thefly.com.
Benchmark reiterated a buy rating and a $16 price target on the stock.
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“Intuitive Machines will try again,” wrote Benchmark analyst Josh Sullivan said, according to Barron's.
“We view the move in Intuitive Machines stock as an overreaction given [company] backlog, and the context that space can often be an iteration process.”
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