By James Rogers

Shares of space exploration company Intuitive Machines are on track to extend their winning streak to four days

Shares of Intuitive Machines Inc. continued to rise Tuesday as the space exploration company plans to send its historic second mission to the lunar surface early next year.

Intuitive Machines (LUNR) stock ended Monday’s session up 10.7%, posting its biggest daily percentage gain since Nov. 29, when it gained 13.2%. Shares of Intuitive Machines rose 2.3% on Tuesday, setting it up for a four-day winning streak – the longest since a five-day winning streak that ended on November 11, 2024. The stock is up 419.4% in 2024.

Short interest as a percentage of the public float of Intuitive Machines stock is 20.5%, according to the latest stock market data.

Related: Intuitive Machines shares soar as company prepares second lunar mission for early 2025

On Monday, telecommunications giant Nokia Corp. (NOK) wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that it would deploy the first cellular network on the Moon next year during Intuitive Machines’ uncrewed IM-2 mission. In a statement earlier this year, Nokia Bell Labs said it would deploy a “network in a box” containing a single Nokia base station that would connect to Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lunar lander with two vehicles – the MAPP rover from Lunar Outpost and Micro-Nova Hopper from Intuitive Machines. “Successful testing of this small network will pave the way for much more sophisticated and extensive networks in future missions to the Moon and possibly Mars,” Nokia said in the release.

In a statement released in August, spaceflight and space infrastructure company Axiom Space said it was also partnering with Nokia to enable high-speed cellular network capabilities in lunar spacesuits.

Intuitive Machines has gotten a lot of attention in 2024. The Houston-based company’s Odysseus lander became the first commercial lander to successfully land on the Moon’s surface earlier this year. During a conference call to discuss Intuitive Machines’ third-quarter results last month, Chief Executive Officer Steve Altemus said the company’s IM-2 mission is on track to fly in the first quarter of 2025, with a launch window in February. The CEO said IM-2 is a “very complicated” prospecting mission that will deploy a drill, hopper and rover to the lunar surface.

Related: Space stocks climb again as ‘hot sector’ generates gains

In September, shares of Intuitive Machines climbed after the company announced that NASA had awarded it the Near Space Network contract for communications and navigation services for missions in the near space region, which extends from the surface of the Earth to beyond the Moon. The contract could reach $4.82 billion.

In late August, Intuitive Machines won a $116.9 million contract with NASA to deliver six science and technology payloads to the Moon’s south pole. One of the payloads is a drilling suite led by the European Space Agency, the company said in a statement.

Last month, Benchmark raised its price target for Intuitive Machines from $10 to $16. In a note, Benchmark analyst Josh Sullivan cited the company’s successful business model approach to space infrastructure, which is “becoming even more of an asset under the new administration.”

Related: Huge NASA contract sent Intuitive Machines stock soaring. This analyst sees even more benefits.

Cantor raised its price target for Intuitive Machines last month from $10 to $15, citing the company’s higher revenues, additional contract awards and higher peer multiples.

Of six analysts surveyed by FactSet, one has an overweight rating and five have a buy rating for Intuitive Machines.

-James Rogers

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  17/12/24 1023ET
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