Intuitive Machines' Q3 revenue rises to $269 million from $52 million a year earlier on satellite-maker deal

Intuitive Machines, the Houston company that has completed two lunar missions, now earns most of its money building satellites. In results filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on November 12, 2026, it reported revenue of $269.3 million for the third quarter, against $52.4 million in the same quarter of 2025. All but $1.8 million of the $216.9 million increase came from Lanteris Space Holdings, the spacecraft maker formerly known as Maxar Space Systems, which Intuitive Machines bought on January 13; that comparison is ours, from the figures in its quarterly report.

The quarter in figures

Lanteris's revenue in the quarter came from commercial satellite contracts ($92.9 million), national security contracts ($67.6 million) and civil contracts ($54.5 million), the quarterly report says. The company called its gross margin of $69 million, or 26%, a record, crediting the satellite production business, higher volume and favorable one-time program adjustments.

Costs grew with the business. General and administrative expense rose to $82.9 million from $16.3 million, and depreciation and amortization to $13.2 million from $0.8 million, which left a wider operating loss of $34.2 million. The bottom line looks better mainly because of a $30.0 million gain from a change in the fair value of the company's warrant liabilities, which is reported outside operations. Without it, by our arithmetic, the pre-tax loss would have been about $33.4 million rather than $3.4 million.

Backlog and outlook

Backlog, the company's estimate of future revenue from binding contracts, stood at $1.87 billion on September 30. The filing says the rise since December includes $612.8 million taken over with Lanteris, $31.7 million from the August purchase of the Goonhilly Earth Station and $1.77 billion of new awards, among them work for three commercial satellites, the Space Development Agency's tranche 3 tracking layer and the Accelerated Missile Defense Tranche 3 constellation. It expects to turn 13% to 15% of the backlog into revenue in the rest of 2026 and 40% to 45% over 2027. For the full year it forecasts revenue of $920 million to $950 million and positive adjusted EBITDA, a measure it defines itself.

The Moon business

Everything outside Lanteris, the lunar work included, brought in about $54 million of the quarter's revenue, by our arithmetic. Revenue from NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) missions rose by $1.1 million on a year earlier, the report says, helped by new contracts for missions IM-5 and IM-6. The first two missions were completed in February 2024 and March 2025.

Its third lander mission, IM-3, under a NASA payload contract awarded in November 2021, is about 94% complete as a contract and has been booked as a loss since 2021. Higher estimated costs added $9.1 million of losses in the first nine months of 2026, which the company attributes mainly to schedule delays and to aligning the mission with the completion of its own satellite for lunar orbit, built for NASA's Near Space Network. The contract's period of performance runs through March 2027.

"As we look to turn the corner into 2027, we remain laser focused on IM-3 along with our first Altus-1 lunar satellite, which remains on track for a planned launch in the March/April timeframe," chief executive Steve Altemus said in the results release. NASA's launch schedule lists IM-3 for early 2027 and IM-4 for 2027. Both are targets until the rockets fly. The company also plans to deploy four more satellites for its cislunar Near Space Network constellation, Altus-2 to Altus-5, together in 2028 on a launch vehicle provided by NASA.

In October, NASA selected the company for its second-generation lunar delivery contract, CLPS 2. It is a multiple-award contract with a 10-year base term and a combined ceiling of $10 billion across all the companies chosen, plus an optional five-year extension worth $5 billion, according to the filing. The company does not count possible orders under contracts of this kind in its backlog.

The price of the purchase

Intuitive Machines paid $853.3 million for Lanteris: $405.6 million in cash, $43.7 million in transaction bonuses treated as part of the price, and 22,991,028 new shares valued at $404.0 million. Cash and cash equivalents fell to $463.8 million on September 30 from $582.6 million at the end of 2025. The report also discloses two Department of Justice inquiries. On October 27, 2026, the department served a civil investigative demand on Intuitive Machines itself in a False Claims Act investigation; the company says the investigation is at a preliminary stage, that it intends to cooperate fully and that it cannot predict the outcome. A separate investigation, in which the department issued a demand in October 2023, concerns allegations that Lanteris failed to meet cybersecurity requirements in federal contracts. Lanteris is cooperating and talks on a resolution are continuing, the filing says, and the seller's parent, Vantor Holdings, has agreed to indemnify Intuitive Machines for Lanteris's liability in that investigation.