Rich Smith, The Motley Fool

Sat, May 24, 2025, 5:08 AM5 min read

• Intuitive Machines stock missed earnings. Its stock went up anyway.

• The space company has landed spacecraft on the moon twice now, neither time 100% successfully.

• It's preparing for a third attempt next year, and promises to "incorporate ... lessons learned" from the last wobbly landing.

• 10 stocks we like better than Intuitive Machines ›

Intuitive Machines (NASDAQ: LUNR) stock is on a roll.

Despite missing earnings in its Q1 earnings report earlier this month, shares of the first American company to land a spacecraft on the moon in more than 50 years remain a fan favorite among space investors and are up 20% since the report.

And why?

Well, let's review.

Intuitive Machines is not yet earning profits. On the contrary, the company lost $0.11 per share in Q1 (although this was down from $2.68 per share lost in Q1 last year). Sales were $62.5 million, down 15% year over year, but are expected to bounce back 10% in Q2.

More encouragingly, the company generated positive free cash flow in Q1 -- $13.3 million -- the first time this had happened in more than two years. Analysts polled by S&P Global Market Intelligence do expect the company to burn cash for the next three quarters ($15 million in total), so Intuitive Machines might still end up FCF-negative for the year. But the difference is basically a rounding error, and it's also possible the company might be able to report positive FCF.

Basically, it's a toss-up, and if Intuitive Machines does manage to report positive full-year free cash flow three years before most analysts were expecting this to happen, it could be a big catalyst to move the stock higher.

So, that's the short-term picture. Now, let's take a look at the long term.

Intuitive Machines is fast becoming NASA's go-to contractor for delivering at least small caches of scientific equipment to the moon. The space agency has awarded Intuitive four separate "IM" missions to the moon, of which two are now complete, and two more are scheduled to take place in 2026 and 2027, respectively.

Unqualified successes so far have been hard to come by, with Intuitive landing its first two IM landers safely, only to see the spacecrafts topple over on their sides when landing. The good news here is that management recognizes the problem and has promised to "incorporate IM-2 lessons learned" in building its IM-3 lander for next year's mission so that it can, with any luck, land upright next time around. The other good news is that NASA seems sufficiently satisfied with the landings -- despite their shortcomings -- and that it has promised to pay Intuitive "success payments" for the IM-2 mission this coming quarter.