Why Intuitive Car Stocks Are Up 60% Today

Intuitive machines (NASDAQ: LUNR) Shares surged 60% in the first five minutes of trading Wednesday morning (up 60.4% by 9:35 a.m. ET) after NASA announced it was awarding a massive $4.8 billion contract to the rising space star.

The contract, called “GEO Relay Services to Cislunar” covers communications services to the Moon from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2029, and has an “option” to be extended for another five years, until September. 30, 2034.

NASA + LUNR = better together

Specifically, NASA employs Intuitive Machines to provide communications services, including “positioning, navigation, and timing capabilities that are crucial to ensuring the safety of navigation on and around the lunar surface.” The company will establish communications relays between geostationary orbit (GEO, about 22,000 miles above Earth’s surface) and the Moon, which orbits Earth at about 10 times that distance.

So basically, Intuitive will be responsible for making sure that messages sent from Earth to the GEO satellites make it the rest of the way to the Moon and back. In its contract announcement, NASA notes that hiring the space company to handle this work will ease the communications load on NASA’s own space network.

Is Intuitive Machines stock a buy?

And here’s why this is important to investors: This contract isn’t just a (much) bigger contract than the kind Intuitive Machines has won so far from NASA. It’s brand new KIND of work that NASA hires Intuitive for.

So far, the space agency has hired Intuitive to land payloads on the moon for him. It’s a great job to do, and so far Intuitive Machines is the only private company that has proven it can do it. Now the company is expanding into a new business area — space communications — and it looks like it could be a billion-dollar-a-year business for Intuitive Machines.

This is a clear win for Intuitive Machines stock, and investors are right to be happy about it.

Should you invest $1,000 in Intuitive Machines right now?

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Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Why Intuitive Cars Soared 60% in Stock Today was originally published by The Motley Fool