Houston-based Intuitive Machines (Nasdaq: LUNR) will have to wait a little longer to land its craft on the moon’s surface next year after its launch window shifted.
According to a release from the company this week, the IM-1 lunar lander mission will now be targeted for a multi-day window that opens no earlier than February 2024, due to projected unfavorable weather conditions. California-based SpaceX will carry Intuitive Machines’ Nova Lunar Lander
IM-1 is slated to land on the south pole of the moon, and the company said that the specific lighting conditions required for the mission was another factor in the launch window changing.
According to Intuitive Machines’ website, the IM-1 payload will include a Navigation Doppler Lidar — a sensor that can provide velocity and range detection during the lander’s descent — from NASA’s Langley Research Center. The craft will also carry a sculpture from the artist Jeff Koons, which will be installed on the moon. The mission itself is funded by NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which is intended to reestablish a presence on the moon.
Intuitive Machines is one of several private companies targeting moon landings in the coming year for the first time, alongside Pittsburgh-based Astrobotics, which is also launching a lunar lander. The landings represent growth in the U.S. private space economy alongside companies such as Houston-based Axiom Space that have completed missions to the International Space Station.
The launch will cap a meteoric rise in the past 18 months for Intuitive Machines, which went public in February 2023 after a merger with the blank-check company Inflection Point Acquisition Corp. that was announced last year. The pro forma equity valuation of that deal was valued at approximately $1 billion at the time of its announcement.
Nova has been launch-ready since November, according to comments from Intuitive Machines CEO and co-founder Steve Altemus earlier this year. The lander was delivered to Cape Canaveral, Florida after Intuitive Machines opened its $40 million Lunar Operations and Production Center in September at the Houston Spaceport at Ellington Airport.
The building was completed after over a year of construction, making Intuitive Machines the second of the Spaceport’s three anchor tenants to open permanent facilities in recent years. The Lunar Operations and Production Center follows North Carolina-based Collins Aerospace — a division of RTX Corp. — opening a 120,000-square-foot facility in 2022.
Meanwhile, Axiom opened its own new headquarters in December with the Axiom Space Assembly and Test Integration Center. The company confirmed that it will add additional phases to its 22-acre site at the Spaceport, where it intends to manufacture the Axiom Station, a private space station.
The advances in companies with a Texas presence such as Axiom Space, SpaceX and Intuitive Machines led professional services firm PriceWaterCoopers to rank the Lone Star State first in the nation in aerospace investment in a 2023 report.
According to Business in Texas, the aerospace, aviation and defense sector accounts for $3.8 billion in total wages and employs about 140,000 people in total. Locally, the Houston area is home to 500 companies and institutions that work in the aerospace, space and aviation sector.
State officials have also made strides to capitalize on private spaceflight growth in the Lone Star State. During the 88th legislative session, House Bill 3447 created the Texas Space Commission, intended to keep the Lone Star State competitive with other emerging space markets around the country.
From that bill, $350 million — over 56% of its total funding, according to Harvey — went to the Houston area, where Texas A&M University will use the funds to create a new $200 million Texas Space Institute facility near NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
