WASHINGTON — Intuitive Machines suggested the need for “reformulation” of NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration campaign to accommodate budget issues and delays.
In an earnings call Nov. 14 to discuss the company’s third quarter financial results, Steve Altemus, chief executive of Intuitive Machines, called for an “affordable, incremental roadmap” for lunar exploration that may increase reliance on companies like his.
“For NASA to successfully executive its Artemis campaign in a globally competitive landscape, we see the possible need for a reformulation driven by budgetary and schedule realities,” he said. “We believe that NASA must continue to partner with commercial industries to drive an affordable, incremental roadmap that enables steady, visible progress.”
He called for a focus on development of infrastructure and data services that could be used by future missions and a “thriving lunar economy.” This approach, he said, “can then accommodate potential delays and budget shortfalls in developing the human systems while keeping them squarely in sight for the United States.”
He didn’t provide additional details about this approach but returned to it later in the call. “A regular cadence of missions to engineer the systems that are going to be required to support the astronauts is as crucial as the astronauts actually arriving,” he said. “My theory is to redistribute the activities in the Artemis program to make sure that the infrastructure arrives and is delivered that will support a sustained human presence.”
He called that an “infrastructure-first” approach to lunar exploration that will also build up experience in lunar operations ahead of human missions. “We need to get good at that and build the reliable systems, and that’s done by doing it over and over and over again.”
That approach would benefit Intuitive Machines, which specializes in lunar infrastructure. The company has flown one lunar lander mission for NASA and has three more in development. It is one of three companies that received awards in April to begin design work on lunar rovers for use on later Artemis missions. In September, NASA selected the company to develop a lunar communications network under a contract worth up to $4.82 billion over 10 years.
Lander delays
Intuitive Machines is currently working on a second lunar lander mission whose launch, the company revealed in the call, had slipped to February 2025.
The company, in its previous earnings call in August, said it was planning a launch in December or early January for the mission, which will use the company’s Nova-C lander design flown on its first mission, IM-1, this February. That was itself a slip from November 2024, which the company blames on availability of the Kennedy Space Center launch pad that will be used by the SpaceX Falcon 9 launching the mission as well as contractual modifications with NASA to change the landing location for IM-2.
In more recent presentations, both NASA and company officials have listed a launch date of the first quarter of 2025 for IM-2, but were not more specific. Altemus initially gave the same first-quarter launch date for IM-2 during the call, providing the February date only when asked for details later in the call.
The company did not give a reason for the new date. Altemus said the company completed a hotfire test of the lander’s propulsion system, “representing the most complex integrated test of the lander thus far.”
IM-2 is carrying payloads for NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, including a drill experiment called PRIME-1 that will probe up to a meter into the surface to extract regolith for analysis by a spectrometer. It is part of efforts to understand the extend and form of water ice in the polar regions of the moon.
Intuitive Machines is also developing a third Nova-C lander for the IM-3 mission, going through vibration testing ahead of a launch that Altemus said is in a “mission window through early 2026.” The company, in August, projected a launch in October or November of 2025.
Lunar network and LRO camera
Intuitive Machines provided additional details about the development of that lunar communications network for NASA. That system will feature five spacecraft orbiting or in the vicinity of the moon to relay communications between spacecraft at the moon and the Earth.
The first data relay satellite will launch as a secondary payload on the IM-3 mission, the company said, with two more launching with IM-4. The final two satellites will launch on later, unspecified missions.
The company is currently in an initial “verification” phase of the award, said Peter McGrath, chief financial officer of Intuitive Machines, with a series of task orders valued at $150 million. The company is on the first task order, slated to last six months and valued at $9 million, to be followed by a second task order also lasting six months and valued at $18 million. Later task orders are tied to the deployment and testing of the satellites, and would unlock new phases of the award to provide communications services.
Intuitive Machines revealed in the earnings call that the company had taken over operations and data analysis of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC), the main instrument on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, as well as the NASA-developed Shadowcam camera on South Korea’s Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, or Danuri, spacecraft.
Altemus said the deal means “establishing a foothold in lunar orbit before our first relay satellite is deployed” by giving the company experience in lunar orbit operations. “This team brings invaluable experience that we believe will accelerate Intuitive Machines’ ability to field the first lunar data relay satellite constellation.”
He noted later in the call that the deal, which the company valued at $9 million, does not give it exclusive access to LROC or Shadowcam imagery, which remain publicly available. “It gives us a capability and infrastructure we can build upon here on Earth for data warehousing” and analysis of data, he said.
NASA had not announced a change in operations of either LROC or Shadowcam, but NASA spokesperson Molly Wasser confirmed that happened. “Mark Robinson, the principal investigator for both of those instruments, accepted a position with Intuitive Machines and the instrument operations transferred there in September,” she told SpaceNews Nov. 14.
