Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Intuitive Machines First Quarter 2026 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. And I would now like to turn the call and conference over to Stephen Zhang, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Welcome to the Intuitive Machines First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. Chief Executive Officer, Steve Altemus and Chief Financial Officer, Pete McGrath, are leading the call today. Before we begin, please note that some of the information discussed during today's call will consist of forward-looking statements, setting forth our current expectations with respect to the future of our business, the economy and other events.

The company's actual results could differ materially from those indicated in any forward-looking statements due to many factors. These factors are described under forward-looking statements in the company's earnings press release and the company's most recent 10-K and 10-Q filed with the SEC. We do not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements. We also expect to discuss certain financial measures and information that are non-GAAP measures as defined in the applicable SEC rules and regulations.

Reconciliations to the company's GAAP measures are included in the earnings release filed on Form 8-K. Finally, we posted an earnings call presentation on our website, which provides additional context on our operational and financial performance. You can find this presentation on our Investor Relations page at www.intuitivemachines.com/investors. Now I'll turn the call over to Steve Altemus.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. Intuitive Machines continues to execute, grow and win new business at a record pace. Our acquisition of Lanteris has been immediately accretive with the combined entity value already bearing fruit. The U.S.

Space Force Space Systems Command selected Intuitive Machines for the Andromeda IDIQ contract. Under this 10-year vehicle with an anticipated ceiling value of $6.24 billion, we will compete to design and field next-generation space domain awareness capabilities to detect, track and characterize objects in geosynchronous orbit. This award marks our first major selection as a combined company following the acquisition of Lanteris. These national security priorities will continue to be one of our main focus areas for growth.

Today, we are also pleased to announce the signing of a definitive agreement for the purchase of Goonhilly Earth Station and its subsidiary in the U.S. COMSAT. With KinetX, Lanteris and now Goonhilly, Intuitive Machines is building the capability to manufacture spacecraft, connect space-to-ground networks and operate space infrastructure across multiple domains for a diversified customer base. Intuitive machines started 2026 with the strongest quarter in our company's history.

We delivered record revenue of $187 million, generated more than $30 million of gross margin and produced positive adjusted EBITDA for the quarter. We also exited quarter 1 with a record backlog of $1.1 billion, supported by more than $400 million in new bookings this quarter. Those bookings were led by the Space Development Agency Tranche 3 Tracking Layer award with L3Harris as well as our fifth CLPS lunar surface delivery mission. These results show that our strategy is scaling.

We are building a diversified space infrastructure company, one that serves commercial, civil and national security customers across multiple domains. This diversity is reflected in our revenue mix for the quarter which was 35% commercial, 38% civil and 27% national security space. That balance matters. Our path to recurring operational revenue starts with diversification.

It depends on building critical infrastructure for multiple customers across multiple markets with multiple capabilities that extend from Earth orbit to the lunar surface and on to Mars and beyond. The Lanteris acquisition accelerated this strategy. It expanded our production base, strengthened our near-term revenue foundation and added capabilities in geostationary orbit, commercial communications, national security, C-band spectrum clearing and next-generation orbital data centers and relay architectures. At the same time, space activity under NASA's ignition is moving from isolated missions to sustained cadence and operations.

That shift requires new infrastructure, systems to build spacecraft and surface assets, networks to connect them and services to operate them over time. That is the model we are building in Intuitive Machines. Build is our production layer. Connect is our network layer.

Operate is our recurring services layer. Project Ignition reinforces all 3. Over the last several years, we have invested ahead of this transition. We have developed, flown and validated systems required to operate on and around the moon. We are one of the few companies with Lunar operations experience in the last 50-plus years, and we are well positioned in the areas NASA has now made central to its moon-based architecture across delivery, data and mobility.

So let me start with Build. Build is where infrastructure becomes real. It is where mission demand turns into flight hardware, production capacity, supply chain discipline and delivery cadence. This delivery cadence is critical for NASA's ignition initiative, which requires repeatable lunar infrastructure.

CLPS is no longer just a series of individual delivery missions, it is becoming a pathway toward a production line, lunar delivery capability that can support the industrialization of the moon. NASA's moon-based opportunity includes an expected $20 billion across the first 2 phases. This includes an increase in the CLPS 1.0 from $2.6 billion to $4.2 billion. Our recent CT-4 CLPS award and the new CS-8 procurement are funded under this CLPS 1.0 contract.

CS-8 is focused on moon-based payload deliveries using landers with proven heritage and readiness for deployment by the end of 2028. NASA is expected to announce this award in the coming weeks. In addition, a $6 billion CLPS 2.0 IDIQ was added to support heavier cargo payload deliveries beyond 2028. The scalability of our Nova-C lander to Nova-D and Super Nova is the natural next step in support of CLPS 2.0 and has always been the part of our strategic plan. Starting with Nova-C, we turned a flight-proven lunar lander into a production line infrastructure platform with a known supply chain, reduced nonrecurring costs and greater schedule reliability.

We are already applying that discipline. IM-3 entered vertical assembly during the quarter for its expected mission later this year. That mission is expected to launch our first lunar data relay satellite for NASA's near space network services contract, bringing our builds and connect layers together in one mission architecture. We also completed engine testing for IM-4, meeting that mission's requirements as well as engine requirements for IM-5, which was our CT-4 awarded during this first quarter.

This is how flight heritage compounds, shared systems, repeatable hardware and increasing production efficiency across the lunar delivery portfolio. The Moon based portfolio from ignition includes the need for lunar mobility. NASA's revised Lunar Terrain vehicle services approach moves beyond a single demonstration Rover toward a phased procurement strategy for sustained surface operations. Intuitive machines previously received a $30 million LTV award, and we have rapidly aligned our proposal with NASA's updated requirements through crude and uncrewed mobility systems.

These vehicles are designed around the principals Ignition now demands: speed, survivability, repeatable production, autonomous and crude operations and persistent communications and navigation across the Lunar South Pole environment. LTV is important because mobility becomes operational infrastructure once humans and robotic systems are operating on the moon for extended periods of time. We expect award decisions for the crude and uncrewed LTVs in the coming weeks. NASA's ignition also extends beyond the lunar surface.

Through the extensive work we performed on the Gateway's power and propulsion element, the most powerful solar electric propulsion spacecraft ever built, we are committed to NASA's vision of repurposing this incredible spacecraft to serve as the centerpiece of the U.S. flagship mission to Mars, the SR-1 Freedom nuclear electric propulsion element. This solar and nuclear propulsion element will fly to Mars and deliver the Skyfall payload to the surface, representing the boldest advanced propulsive mission ever attempted. That gives our Build segment another direct role in Ignition, delivering payloads to the moon and helping repurpose proven space flight hardware for the next phase of exploration to Mars.

At the same time, Build is not a single market business. The same production engines supporting our lunar portfolio is also driving diversified growth across commercial and national security customers. On the commercial side, we're also executing across our IM 1300 Series spacecraft line. SiriusXM-11 is complete and ready for transportation to the launch site and EchoStar XXV on-orbit testing was successfully completed with expected handoffs to the customer by the end of the month.

In National Security, we are delivering SDA Tranche 1, producing Tranche 2 and were awarded Tranche 3 in the first quarter. We were also selected by U.S. Space Force Space Systems Command for the Andromeda $6.24 billion IDIQ, which we will compete to design and field next-generation space awareness capabilities in geosynchronous orbit. We also submitted an updated AMDT3 proposal for 18 to 45 spacecraft, of which the first 18 are expected to have an award decision in June.

In addition, we were given authority to proceed while in final negotiations for 2 additional satellites for an undisclosed customer. We are also investing in our satellite production line to advance schedules and inventory of upcoming campaigns, including NSNS, Near Space Network Services contract, the FCC C-band clearing and the TDRS-related opportunities, that's tracking data relays satellite services opportunities. For the 1300 series satellite, we are enhancing digital processor capabilities that will enable our satellites to be reconfigured on orbit. That expands the addressable market from fixed purpose spacecraft to move to more flexible software-defined mission architectures with satellites that serve multiple customers.

We intend to bring our new space prime culture into the reconfigurable satellite marketplace. So moving on, the next layer is Connect. As Build scales physical infrastructure, Connect makes the infrastructure operational. As mentioned, NASA Ignition significantly increases the expected cadence of missions to and around the mood.

That cadence requires persistent communications, navigation, data transport and control. In other words, Ignition validates the market we've been building towards through our Lunar data transmission strategy and Near Space Network Services contracts. That is why we believe our agreement to acquire Goonhilly Earth Space Unlimited and its U.S.-based subsidiary, COMSAT, is so strategically important. Together, Goonhilly and COMSAT will expand our global ground spacing capacity across the United Kingdom and the United States.

It will add deep space qualified assets and strengthen our ability to offer customers an integrated and reliable space-to-ground network for communications, data relay and position navigation and timing. We believe customers want less friction in their mission architecture. They want a single resilient interoperable network that can help them communicate with, navigate and control spacecraft across low earth orbit, lunar orbit and cislunar environments. With Goonhilly, we are expanding our ability to provide that service now and scale it in parallel with demand.

Subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of applicable regulatory approvals, this acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter. Sustained Lunar operations will require a reliable network infrastructure capable of supporting Artemis, international missions, commercial lunar operators and national security cislunar activity. We are already seeing the architecture come together as we continue to work towards our first lunar relay satellite, Altus-1, expected to launch with IM-3. Our satellite production team is completing structural design and moving into manufacturing the satellite bus frame internally.

In the coming weeks, we expect to begin an integration of flight hardware. We also completed Artemis II tracking, further validating our interoperability with the Artemis program, ahead of Artemis III and Artemis IV. Long term, we believe the value of the infrastructure model begins to compound as we operate. It is the transition from individual missions and hardware deliveries toward persistent services, deeper customer relationships and repeatable operational revenue.

Ignition brings that future closer. A sustained moon base requires delivery navigation, mobility and communications. It requires assets that can operate for long durations, mobility systems that support crude and uncrude activity, data services that guide surface operations and navigation tools that help customers move safely and precisely across the lunar environment. That is why LTV matters beyond the initial vehicle build.

Under NASA's revised approach, lunar mobility is becoming an operational service requirement. Once delivered, these vehicles are expected to support sustained surface activity through autonomy, tele operations, traverse planning, communications, maintenance and mission support. Today, we are already operating persistent lunar data services. Intuitive Machines continues to support NASA's lunar reconnaissance orbiter and ShadowCam to provide imaging operations, data storage and analysis and mission support around the moon.

This strengthens our role as steward of one of the most comprehensive Lunar data archives ever assembled. Over the past 16 years, the LROC team has captured more than 2 million high-resolution images of the lunar surface in collaboration with NASA's lunar reconnaissance orbiter team. Those images support terrain models, surface feature mapping, composition analysis and landing pad evaluation for Artemis and commercial lunar missions. When paired with our navigation expertise, high-resolution lunar imagery and our upcoming lunar data relay satellite constellation, these archives can support orbital and surface navigation services for government and commercial exploration.

So while Operate is the long-term destination of our business model, we are already operating mission-critical lunar data systems today. Ignition increases the need for those systems and our build and connect capabilities give us a path to expand them into recurring operational services across mobility, navigation, communications and lunar logistics. The next phase of space economy will not be defined only by who reaches new destinations, it will be defined by who can build the infrastructure, connect it reliably and operate at scale. Looking back this quarter, 3 things changed materially.

First, Lanteris expanded our production scale and margin profile. Second, national security demand accelerated with FDA and Andromeda wins. And third, NASA's Ignition framework validated our strategy to build integrated lunar infrastructure and services. Intuitive Machines continues to evolve into a vertically integrated aerospace, infrastructure and national security platform with expanding recurring service revenue.

Quarter 1 was a record financial quarter demonstrated by integration across all our recent acquisitions. More importantly, it shows that this strategy is moving from thesis to execution. That is what Intuitive machines is building. Now I'll turn it over to Pete for the financial review.

Pete?

Thank you, Steve, and thanks to everyone joining us today. Q1 marked an inflection point for the company financially. We delivered record revenue, positive adjusted EBITDA and record backlog while closing on the Lanteris acquisition and continuing to invest in future infrastructure capabilities. We ended the quarter with strong growth and record backlog.

We delivered a record $186.7 million in Q1 revenue, approximately 3x the first quarter of 2025. As a reminder, we closed the Lanteris acquisition on January 13 of this year. Therefore, reported Q1 revenue does not include 12 days of Lanteris which was approximately $13 million in revenue. Revenue growth was driven by execution across satellite manufacturing, CLPS missions, OMES and NSNS programs, with balanced contribution from commercial, civil and national security customers. We also exited the quarter with a record $1.1 billion backlog, supported by more than $400 million in new bookings highlighted by SDA tranche 3 in February and our fourth CLPS mission, CT-4 in March.

This backlog provides strong multiyear visibility and reflects increasing demand across both civil and national security markets. Approximately 60% to 65% of our backlog is expected to be revenue in 2026 and the remaining 35% to 40% in 2027 and beyond. Looking ahead, we expect additional backlog growth from several large multiyear NASA and national security programs currently moving through the government procurement cycle, including Golden Dome initiatives, NASA's lunar terrain vehicle, additional CLPS missions as well as other NASA Project Ignition moon infrastructure programs. The quarter continued our margin expansion plan while also making strategic investments in the 1300 Series program to grow market share in GEO.

Gross profit increased to $30.1 million, up significantly from $6.7 million in the prior year. This improvement was driven by the growing contribution from our satellite business and the continued expansion of higher-margin service revenues, including NSNS. SG&A was $50.7 million in the quarter, which includes $20 million of acquisition-related transaction and integration costs as well as $6.3 million for a share-based compensation grant tied to the Lanteris acquisition that will be expensed each quarter for the remainder of the year. The majority of these acquisition-related expenses are nonrecurring, and we expect quarterly SG&A to normalize materially as integration activities wind down.

Operating loss for the quarter was $39.2 million, versus a loss of $10.1 million in the first quarter of 2025, driven by acquisition-related transaction and integration costs, amortization and continued investment in next-generation satellite capabilities. Research and development was $5.6 million in the quarter. These investments are focused on expanding our software-defined satellite architecture, increasing addressable market opportunities in GEO and cislunar communications and supporting future high-margin infrastructure services. Q1 profitability was a record for the company as adjusted EBITDA was positive $2.7 million compared to negative $6.6 million last year driven primarily by a higher margin contribution from Lanteris, partially offset by growth investments I just mentioned.

Positive adjusted EBITDA in the quarter demonstrates the improving earnings power of the combined business as revenue scales, customer mix shifts and operational efficiencies continue to improve. Operating cash used was $54.8 million in the quarter. This included approximately $20 million of onetime acquisition transaction and integration costs and $5.6 million in R&D investments which I mentioned earlier, as well as $2 million in additional inventory prebuy at Lanteris ahead of a commercial opportunity we have later this year. Capital expenditures of $9.9 million was primarily for our NSNS satellite constellation, resulting in a negative free cash flow of $64.6 million, which again includes significant onetime costs.

As a reminder, CapEx will continue to grow as we invest and build out our 5 satellite lunars constellation and ground segment. The timing of awards as well has instead of compensation also impacted cash in the first quarter. Free cash flow is expected to normalize throughout the year as we move past onetime acquisition-related costs and new awards start to come in. We ended the quarter with $232 million in cash, following the successful completion of the Lanteris acquisition and $175 million capital raise earlier this year.

As discussed on our last earnings call, $403 million of the cash was used in the quarter for the acquisition of Lanteris, along with additional post-close reconciliations that aligned with the $450 million cash position of the purchase price. As of May 7, our total shares outstanding are 217 million with 160.5 million shares of Class A and 56.6 million shares of Class C. Moving on to guidance. We are maintaining our revenue outlook range between $900 million to $1 billion.

Importantly, a significant portion of our expected 2026 revenue is already supported by contract backlog giving us strong visibility into our outlook as we await significant award decisions in the coming weeks. On the profitability side, we continue to expect positive adjusted EBITDA for the full year. In summary, Q1 demonstrated continued revenue scale, improving profitability and growing strategic diversification as we invest in infrastructure capabilities designed to support long-term recurring revenue growth. With that, operator, we are now ready for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Griffin Boss from B. Riley Securities.

So great to see all the progress across the board. I was wondering if you could give some more detail on where you're at in the development stage for the Nebula orbital transfer vehicle. Is that in CDR or approaching it? And is this another platform that you envision you could leverage for Andromeda task orders for GEO operations in addition to actually building the satellites?

Good morning, Griffin. It's good to hear from you. Yes, OTV orbital transfer vehicle, which is our Nebula, as we call it, has passed through CDR with the customer. And we're awaiting Phase III, which is a full-scale development and flight of that vehicle.

We expect multiple copies of this orbital transfer vehicle in the future to support national security space in GEO and cislunar space, certainly. So it's a very specific high thrust, very capable cryogenic propulsive stage that can move into trajectories and orbits well out to 2 million kilometers.

Your next question comes from Edison Yu from Deutsche Bank.

You mentioned Orbital Data Center briefly, I think, earlier. There's clearly a lot of interest, I think, in the industry, and I think a couple of companies in particular have been very vocal. How do you envision Lanteris potentially using its capabilities to take part in this endeavor?

Edison, Intuitive machines as a whole, as a combined company has some incredible capabilities that we're thinking through as an offering for Orbital Data Centers. The build portion of our company, the production, certainly the power propulsive element, the most highest power generating spacecraft ever built can be reproduced at 60,000 watts. We are already thinking about 100 kilowatts in terms of power generation. Our capabilities as a company thinking about thermal management and managing the heat load of edge computing and the need for heat rejection in high-speed computing orbital data centers is critical.

And as a space company, we have that skill to manage that. And then if you think about Connect and the network platform that we're building, the ground segment included with the data relay satellites, including the geosynchronous birds we can put into place, all of that connect operation and the network segment services bring not only a capability to build a data center, but actually to connect it and operate it like no other company can. So we'll be looking for strategic partnerships in this area. We'll be looking for crystalizing our offerings in this area as we move forward.

And so the future is pretty exciting when we're thinking about these new endeavors for the company.

Understood. And just a follow-up on the financial side. Is there any update on the contribution from Lanteris for the full year? If we just kind of use the run rate number that you gave, it seems to be around $400 million, but is that accurate?

We report as a single segment at this point. And without it, we've worked to integrate the company into one company, that's how we'll report. You won't see a distinction between Intuitive Machines and Lanteris. The data from 2025 has been published that gave you kind of the run rate in the past. And looking forward, you'll see the top line from Intuitive Machines.

Your next question comes from Andres Sheppard from Cantor Fitzgerald.

This is Anand on for Andres. Congrats on the quarter, I just wanted to expand a little bit about the Andromeda IDIQ that was touched on a little bit earlier in the call. Given your selection as one of the awardees under that program, I was wondering maybe if you can discuss what capabilities differentiated the combined Intuitive machines and Lanteris platform and the selection process. Maybe what the economic share look like?

And how do you see the positioning of the company in space domain awareness over the next several years given?

Anand. Good morning. Yes, the Andromeda procurement that IDIQ was a combined company offering. Our ability to put things in orbit with precision through the acquisition of KinetX, that orbit determination and precision trajectory management definitely comes into space domain awareness and putting assets where you want them to be and knowing where they are.

Then you combine that with the 1300 Series bus, the production supply chain, the reliability of that bus over time. And then you think about the kinds of things that we do with satellite servicing, with robotics and space gives us a very strong offering. The fact that we've already been out to the moon, orbiting the moon, landing on the moon, flying those precision trajectories, getting into orbit with precision. All of that feeds putting assets in space right where you need to be and the assets that are highly reliable.

So that was the offering, and that's what they recognized and I believe that's the reason we got the award we did.

Got you. Appreciate all the color, Steve. And maybe as a follow-up, with the announced acquisition of Goonhilly and COMSAT, which was a key focus on the call, I was wondering maybe can you explain how owning an additional ground station changes your ability to deliver the end-to-end space data services across lunar, cislunar, GEO and other applications? And how does that affect your capabilities and economics regarding your NSNS contract?

Yes, it's a good question. The Goonhilly Earth Station and its subsidiary, COMSAT, provide up to 44 communication dishes that can reach out to 2 million kilometers, which is the edge of deep space. This acquisition gives us the ability to set up through Goonhilly, leadership of a global ground segment network and provide network segment services and the particular APIs that are needed for scheduling, for multiple customers. And so having that in-house gives us the expertise to be able to integrate this global network that we're putting together on the ground here on Earth.

So it's very strategic in terms of near space network and providing that service across the government and to commercial customers and international customers. Being based in the U.K. gives us access to ESA as well as what we have in the United States for NASA. So all around just a perfect fit. They're a very well-established team and incredibly competent, so that's why we selected them.

Your next question comes from Austin Moeller from Canaccord Genuity.

So just my first question, I understand Andromeda is a multi-vendor IDIQ, but how many GEO COMSATs do you expect to build for that program? And do you expect those satellites to have a replacement cycle after the 10-year performance period just given they're in GEO?

Austin, what we know so far is we're in essentially a design competition. And so the first part of this award is to come up with the design for a highly maneuverable geostationary orbit satellite. Highly maneuverable agile satellites is the direction that we see the GEO market going. And so this is a good entry point for us in national security space.

Again, with our reliability, we built satellites that last 15 years in Orbit, very reliably and have a supply chain to feed that. So like I said earlier, so we're not yet sure what the order book will look like after the designs are completed. I do believe it's multi award in terms of the future satellite purchases and won't just be one vendor. They did increase the value over 10 years, up to $6.24 billion.

So we know there will be multiple satellites and certainly anticipate a replacement cycle. But I don't have any more specificity on the orders or the replacement cycle as the designs aren't yet completed from the awardees.

Okay. And are you able to comment on the RFP and bid process for the light version of LTV, and how the timing of how that's expected to elapse to contract awards this year and lead into a follow-on for a heavier or medium version?

So during the NASA Ignition event, they restructured the task orders under the base contract for the 3 vendors that were awarded. They asked us to modify the LTV design to survive, to make it smaller and survive a single year instead of the larger version, which would last 10 years. That risk was identified by the administrator as too big a first step. And so they wanted to give the vendor pool an opportunity to walk up on this autonomous capability, build a smaller, simpler version, lessen some of the crew requirements in terms of how to operate it with crew.

And so they came out with a new task order for crewed and uncrewed version. We had to submit a proposal late April, I believe. And the award NASA has indicated would be on May 22. We believe that's the latest we've heard for a crewed and uncrewed. There's an option to buy multiple versions of those.

So we'll see what -- how the selection goes. There is a plan in the moon base to -- which is what, $30 billion over 7 years moving forward, I believe it's 7 years, to develop heavier and heavier cargo deliveries, and we think that, that might include multiple future awards of LTV, and they can be increasing capability also over this 15-year contract. So we'll wait and see what the next task orders look like and are cautiously optimistic about the awards in May for LTV.

Your next question comes from Greg Pendy from Clear Street.

Can you just comment on maybe the competitive environment for the LTV? Has that changed? Are there more bidders now coming in from, say, where the landscape was at the end of 2025?

Yes. Greg, the landscape remains the same. The initial contract I believe it was a $4.6 billion contract, was awarded to 3 vendors. Each vendor received a design award that lasted 1 year to come up with an LTV design.

Then we bid the 3 of us vendors, bid on an LTV delivery and demonstration mission. That task order was restructured to bring a crewed and uncrewed version up to the moon and last for a year versus 10 years. The same 3 vendors that won the initial award are the ones that are in the competition to -- for the modified LTV award coming up here at the end of May. So the landscape looks the same in this competitive environment with no additional bidders added to the vendor pool.

Great. And I just get one more financially, the CapEx, that was around $9 million tied to the satellite, should that roughly round out to $30 million for the year?

Pete, why don't you take that one?

Sure. Yes, I think we're going to see as we start building out, we have one we're flying this year. We're going to fly 2 more next year and 2 more the year after that. So I think you'll see the values grow a little bit to account for the increased volume in satellite build going forward.

Your next question comes from Jonathan Siegmann from Stifel.

Congratulations on the progress. Just -- we were excited about the new acquisition, that's a long history there. Can you talk a little bit about how that deal came together? And any more details you can share on how we can model that moving forward in the second half?

Yes. So in February of 2025, we put together an M&A strategy of the kind of capabilities we wanted to add to the company. You saw us now with -- this is the third. KinetX was the first.

Lanteris was the second and Goonhilly was the third. This capability, we've had a strategic partnership with Goonhilly for a number of years now. They were instrumental, if you recall, in Mission 1. When we sat quietly in the control room, and we were waiting for the heartbeat of Odysseus, our Nova-C Lander on the South pole, it was Goonhilly who acquired the signal from our radios on the south pole of the moon. So there have been instrumental partners with us in our success to the moon, and it only made sense to broaden our relationship and integrate it and set them up as the leader of our global ground segment.

So we expect them to continue and will continue to grow and feed the market that we've captured in cislunar space with the near space network contract. So it's a growth opportunity for Goonhilly, and it's strengthening our capabilities in Intuitive Machines.

That's great. And then maybe I'll just ask another one on the backlog timing. So when we compare what you're disclosing now as of March 31, with what you disclosed previously as of February 28, and the backlog increase, it looks like the incremental awards you got added to backlog are actually additive to 2026. So looks like it's near-term work. Is that the right way to look at it?

Or is there any other color we can take on how the quarterly cadence for the rest of the year might shape up?

Yes. I would say that they are primarily -- you see a lot of near term, I'd say over the next 24 months, a lot of that revenue hits on some of the near-term things like the tranche deliveries. CT-4 is a little bit further out. We talked about 60% to 65% of that backlog would be seen this year.

There is also additional awards we're expecting, which would also bring in revenue in the second half of the year. So that's what we're looking at in terms of backlog conversion as well as potential opportunities on revenue.

One other thing I'd add to the future potential awards that Pete mentioned is that we did talk about a flurry of procurements that came out as a result of the NASA Ignition event. We talked about the LTV late May award potential. There's another CLPS mission called CS-8, which could be multiple lander awards in a single procurement. We expect that in mid-June or so.

Also, we're working on a proposal for the TDRS, Tracking Data Relay Satellite system, which is -- draft RFP is out, we're working on a proposal. And the other one is the C-band clearing at the geosynchronous orbit. They're retiring some of the upper portion of the C-band frequency. And so there'll be some Ka-band satellites to bid on and those awards will be happening over the summer, we believe, commercially.

So quite a bit of catalysts coming up in the future on future awards that will add to the backlog, we hope.

Busy business development team.

Next question comes from Michael Leshock from KeyBanc Capital Markets.

I just wanted to follow up on CLPS in the NASA's Ignition program calling for a potential monthly lunar cadence potentially 30 or so landings before the end of the decade and you just talked about CS-8 in mid-June. Do you expect to start seeing these contracts in revenue come through for these missions in the very near term? Just given how you typically begin recognizing revenue a few years ahead of the mission? Are these coming in weeks or months?

Or could they potentially be recognized a bit closer to the mission than you would typically recognize them historically?

Thanks for the question. What we see is a request to build in 24 months. We put in a CS-8 proposal and which could select 1, 2 or 3 lunar landers out of a single proposal and multiple awards. We've scaled our production, leveraging the production capability of Lanteris, coupled with Intuitive Machines, gives us the ability to produce multiple landers in 24-month cycles at a time in parallel.

So that will be near term. The longer-term version of this is called CLPS 2.0 and that's the next 10 years of CLPS. I think they've set aside $6 billion for CLPS 2.0, where we move towards heavier and heavier cargo deliveries to the moon. And so you'll see our Nova-D and Super Nova variants of our lander come into play here in the coming years.

We expect that procurement to be later in the year. It's -- the draft, I think, is in work, but the award will be maybe in the November timeframe. So that will hit in subsequent years while we're still finishing out the CLPS 1.0 budget bucket.

Great. And then is there anything that needs to happen to scale the business further from a production standpoint to meet these exponentially higher demand levels for landers? Is that going on right now? And how quickly can you make one?

Yes, we've looked hard at the process. We are in the process of streamlining the production. And one of the things that's very competitive from an Intuitive Machines standpoint is the strength of the supply chain. The number of spacecraft that we're involved in and building is exercises the supply chain in a very positive way.

And so we can get some benefits on delivery schedules as a result of the volume that runs through the supply chain. So that's really kind of how we've been looking at it plus improving the production techniques and the ground support equipment that allows us to process multiple vehicles at the same time. With our current expansion here in Houston, doubling our capacity in facilities over the past couple of years, and then out at California, Lanteris with over 600,000 square feet of production space really does allow us to step up quickly and respond to the needs of the customer.

Your next question comes from Jeff Van Rhee from Craig Hallum Capital Group.

This is Daniel on for Jeff. On -- most of my questions here have been asked. On this AMDT3 proposal for 18 to 45 spacecraft, I don't think I've seen that reference before. T3, I don't know, is that another way of referencing the tranche 3 tracking layers. If you could expand on what that opportunity is that you're anticipating there?

Yes. So the SDA Tranche 3 tracking layer is what you've been hearing about. You've been hearing about a transport layer and you've been hearing about a tracking layer. Independent of that, there's another series of tracking satellites that are being requested, that is not part of the tracking layer associated with the Space Development Agency.

Okay. And then is that something where you would potentially go prime on that and deliver that directly? Or this is something where you're expecting L3Harris to potentially be bidding on that and that you could build the buses for that again? Or what's the opportunity there?

Yes. This is, again, all the great work that we've done together between Intuitive Machines or Lanteris and L3Harris. This is a continuation of that relationship and extending that relationship even further.

Your next question comes from Alex Preston from Bank of America.

I just wanted to go back to Goonhilly. Maybe beyond NSNS. I'm curious if or where you might see synergies on future contract awards or if there are broadly other opportunities or capabilities that you see yourself as more capable of bidding for now than previously with that?

Let me think about that. What we really had focused on was get the ground segment in our space to ground network established and built out, as someone said on the call as a platform. And so then how you use that platform is really the growth opportunity anchored by the near space network contract, which is 10 years, $4.8 billion, gives us a clear market potential there, and that is only expected to grow across other government agencies and commercially. So the addition alone was to help us with the ground segment for the near space network.

But using that network over time is really where we're going to go together with world-class leadership in space-to-ground communications. Currently, we see the revenue of Goonhilly earth station around $14 million annually. So it's not that significant. But coupled with Intuitive Machines' market, we see incredible growth.

Yes. The other aspect of Goonhilly is as Steve mentioned, it's put over 44 dishes, both in the U.K. and in the United States. Those are not only large dishes that can talk to the moon, but they are dishes that actually can also talk to LEO and GEO. And as we start putting together full service opportunities like TDRS that comes into play as to how we integrate that ground network with our service offering as we go forward.

I guess the other point, as I'm thinking through the question, if you recall, I believe last quarter or in February, I spoke about a strategic partnership with Leonardo, Telespazio to dovetail the Moonlight constellation with the Intuitive Machines data relay constellation. So the work where we combine the ESA work or European work with the U.S. work. Goonhilly is a great bridge for that relationship.

Got it. And then just a follow-up. You mentioned sort of more broadly on the M&A road map. This is sort of the latest in your sort of plan.

Where else are you seeing opportunities for M&A? Is it still sort of bringing in key systems more vertically? Or are you thinking about horizontal space exposure opportunities? Just kind of curious if you could provide any update there on where you're looking at opportunities?

We continue the effort to look at M&A opportunistically. We laid out a plan and executed against the plan from February 25 to today. And so taking another hard look, we'll look at things as where the market steers us. I talked a little bit about Orbital data centers talking with strategic partners.

We'll think about strategic financing. We'll think about M&A when it comes to those offerings as those crystallize.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Suji Desilva from ROTH Capital.

Just trying to dig into the Lanteris opportunity now within Intuitive Machines. The demand for agile space craft sounds very comprehensible in the government defense world. I'm wondering how that might extend into the commercial world that feature -- that capability of the spacecraft or whether it's really more of a defense play?

Suji, I think it's a combination of defense or national security space in RG-XX and other programs that are coming for highly maneuverable GEO satellite birds. If you recall, we spent a lot of time over the past couple of years talking about satellite servicing and the OSAM mission, the on-orbit satellite servicing and manufacturing. That ability to couple robotics with a highly reliable bus. Recall that, that OSAM bus was built by Maxar at the time, which is Lanteris and now Intuitive Machines.

So we have an inherent capability to do satellite servicing robotically. And so as that market develops in the future, that will be a potential commercial entry point for us that leverages the same kind of technology that we're talking about here in RG-XX.

Okay. Great. Very helpful, Steve. And then maybe I remember from the first few missions, the challenges, obviously.

And then I'm wondering if you could draw a line from that to the future where you have Goonhilly in-house versus a partner and these dishes and also have Lunar satellites orbiting helping. Just the -- obviously, nothing is certain with the lunar landing, but the increased confidence versus before and after would be very helpful to understand.

Yes. We've done a lot of work with Goonhilly and others, including the Deep Space network for NASA to improve our ability to perform orbit determination to get into lunar orbit precisely. We've had the acquisition of KinetX, again, who are masters at flying trajectories. They've flown to every kind of mission to every planet in the solar system except for Neptune, I believe.

So very exotic trajectories and exotic navigation techniques to get to where they need to be. And then you take that with -- couple that with a world-class ground station like Goonhilly Earth station. You now can really synchronize and use that as a test bed to just test out the new technologies for ground segment communications to space. So you have a gold standard that you can develop capabilities that will help us integrate in a more uniform way the global network that we're putting together on the ground.

And so I really use it as a benchmark and a gold standard site to continuously improve on ground segment communications and navigation.

There are no further questions at this time, and that concludes the Q&A session of this call. I'll hand it back over to Steve Altemus for any closing remarks.

Well, thank you, everyone, for your questions today. I appreciate them and give me an opportunity to answer them. As you heard, quarter 1 was a strong start to the year and a record quarter for Intuitive Machines. We look forward to continued execution and award decisions in the coming weeks. Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for joining, and that concludes today's conference call. All participants may now disconnect. Thank you.