Intuitive Machines Inc. has landed another NASA contract valued at up to nearly $5 billion.
The Houston-based space company, which made history this year by landing a private craft on the moon, was selected this week to support NASA’s lunar relay systems. The contract's maximum potential value totals $4.82 billion, NASA said.
The contract period begins Oct. 1 and runs through 2029, with an option to extend for another five-year period. The initial contract award includes incrementally funded task orders totaling $150 million, according to information Intuitive Machines filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
As part of NASA’s plan to establish a permanent human presence on the moon, lunar relay systems will provide communications services between the moon’s south pole and Earth. NASA said establishing a communications network will help open future moon landing sites that might otherwise be difficult to establish.
Intuitive Machines will launch its lunar satellite constellation to support the relays, the company said in a Sept. 17 press release.
The lunar relays will be operated by NASA Goddard Space Center in Maryland. Earlier in September, Intuitive Machines opened a new 21,000-square-foot facility near Baltimore, which includes approximately 12,000 square feet of lab space for developing space systems and other advanced technologies.
While no specific missions were named in the announcement, NASA said relay services will be used with its lunar terrain vehicle and Commercial Lunar Payload Services programs. Intuitive Machines already completed a CLPS contract earlier this year through its moon landing in February, and last month the company won a $116.9 million contract for another moon landing.
Meanwhile, Intuitive Machines is one of the companies that landed an LTV contract in April, with an initial award valuation of $30 million. Another Houston-based company, Axiom Space, is partnering with California-based Venturi Astrolab for an LTV contract that could be worth up to $1.9 billion.
Both Intuitive Machines and Axiom Space are continuing to develop in-space telecommunications through partnerships with Swedish giant Nokia. 4G/LTE capabilities will be integrated into Axiom Space’s new AxEMU suits, while a separate project will fly a Nokia payload to the moon’s surface on board Intuitive Machines’ upcoming IM-2 mission.
The IM-2 mission, which is fully sold out, will use the Houston-built lunar lander Athena to land on the moon’s south pole. Athena is a Nova-C lunar lander, the same model as Odysseus — the spacecraft that landed on the moon in February.
IM-2 will launch around the end of 2024 or early 2025, Intuitive Machines said during its most recent earnings call.
In regulatory filings, Intuitive Machines has disclosed the company is working on a new model of lunar lander that can carry a 1,500-kilogram payload. This would allow Intuitive Machines to bring larger vehicles, such as lunar rovers, to the moon’s surface.
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