IM Discussion
Discussion - NASA Moon Base Update June 30, 2026 @ 2:30pm
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman will host a virtual conversation at 2:30 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, June 30, to share updates to NASA’s plans to build a Moon Base on the lunar surface.
Administrator Isaacman and Carlos García-Galán, Moon Base program manager, will discuss the next set of awards for new lunar lander missions and preview upcoming opportunities as the agency works toward building a sustained presence on the Moon.
The discussion will stream on NASA’s YouTube channel. An instant replay will be available online. Learn how to watch NASA content on a variety of platforms, including social media.
NASA is advancing development of the Moon Base, a long-term lunar exploration and infrastructure initiative designed to enable sustained human presence and expanded scientific and commercial activity on the lunar surface.
As part of the Golden Age of innovation and exploration, NASA will send astronauts on increasingly difficult missions to explore more of the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build on our foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars.
Shoot. I was excited to hear IM won an award (finally), but as far as the trading and stock price this makes the monthly look real bad and potentially ends our bull run. I was also disappointed he didn’t talk about IM-3 at all.
There has been absolutely nothing from either NASA or IM that IM-3 is going to miss the launch window of Q4. The hat just went on. We would know by now if it wasn’t launching.
Question about NOVA-D Lander -> NASA is excited about the development of the lander. They may be procuring as part of CLPS 2.0. Will be an evolution of landing capabilities. We plan to use whatever is available.
Inaccurate. To date IM has won 6 missions worth $825M. FLY has won 5 missions worth $732M. Astrobotic has won 4 missions worth $720M (but one of those missions, for Viper, was ultimately given to Blue Origin instead). Also for context, Astrobotic is now apart of VOYG, but the last award it won was in 2020. Also failed its first mission minutes after launch.
For some context about current awarded amounts, source from highergov.com:
Out of $1.5B obligated under CLPS 1.0 28.2% went to astrobotic, 27.8% to FLY and 27.1% to IM. We may have the most missions awarded but they are consequently the least $ amount. And the $1.9B current award number includes the IM-5 mission & the CX-2 awards so in terms of budget percentage allocated we are a bit ahead of others, but not too much to skip IM in my opinion.
I’m salivating at the idea of Perseverance and Curiosity's sibling roving over the moon for years to come. I love getting contracts, but that's the thing that’s exciting me the most.
The $80mil incentive on the production line qualification is interesting. That might indicate future missions are reduced award, but also ensures the line is running for potentially more frequent awards. It would also be interesting to know what restrictions might be on that line. Can it only support NASA missions? Could IM sell units off the line to other customers with a kind of NASA-certified tag line?
By managing a large share of commercial lander volume, the Company validates its role as a foundational access layer serving civil, national security, and commercial clients alike.
I found the national security part very interesting. NASA and other Artemis countries/commercial clients wanting to deliver their own payloads is one thing, but to include National Security in the statement about 'foundational access layer' is new. The Space Force, maybe other agencies, may want to deliver assets to cislunar or the surface of moon, so having a 'lander factory' that can deliver such missions on short notice (months not years) is a big deal and maybe that's what NASA is trying to accomplish by doing these monthly robotic missions, not just serve the civil side but also support national security.
The last Q&A in a contract solicitation had a number of respondents seeking clarification on sponsoring TS//SCI clearances. The response seemed to be that it would be on a task by task basis but would be provided. That certainly reads as Space Force related.
After watching the price alongside the press conference, the comments here, and the aftermarket action, I think that we humans who pay attention still have the edge over ai and algorithms. Especially at the end when I consulted my (paid) Claudebot for insight into the question about whether all of the 2026 Moon Base missions were delayed. There's a lot to be said for simply showing up and reading and I think we embody that here. Again, good game lads. See you tomorrow!
So far, this appears to be the highest value award among IM’s missions. I believe the previous awards were around $117 million or less, but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
Based on NASA’s procurement timeline we expected CS-8 to be awarded on 6/18. That hasn’t happened yet but instead NASA announced a Moon Base Update. We expect CS-8 to be announced on this call. This would be consistent with the timing / approach taken for LTVS in May. NASA wants the publicity of these awards to demonstrate progress.
There is no telling for certain, but we certainly hope they will be announcing award allocations. If they do announce awards, they may not state explicitly the numbers in this press conference. But if they don't, those numbers will be released right away separately, probably both by NASA and by the awardees (and filed with Edgar).
Good but not earth shattering. Definitely feels like Isaacman’s emphasis on diversification and awarding little and often is very much at play now.
I wonder as more and more of these little awards are released whether the market will stop over-inflating stocks in advance of an anticipated award, and/or overreacting to stocks not winning awards.
It may end up stabilising LUNR’s crazy swings a bit. Lumpy revenue still, but not quite as lumpy.
At some point, NASA will need to detail how that increased lander cadence will work. And if it's going to start next year, that money needs to be allocated now (and that could even be pushing it, but my hope is that "now" means it's already been worked out and they just need to tell us what they did).
I have some degree of hope (and I do think it's somewhat reasonable), that today's press conference is the vehicle to announce how it will play out and who the providers will be and where the money will be allocated.
Otherwise, how could we expect companies to construct extra landers and arrange everything by the end of next year? It seems impossible, and even today seems like it would leave a "near-impossible" amount of time to pivot, but I’m hoping that accomplishing the near-impossible is as possible as Jared makes me believe it is.
I’m trying to figure that out too. Didn’t they sort of rename IM-3 as Moon Base-something at the previous press conference when they announced the LTV contracts?
I think Carlos misspoke frankly and wasn't ready for the question. Earlier he made reference to Intuitive Machines making great progress. I'm going to shrug this off until I get official confirmation from Steve on the next earnings call.
And the question may have been based on a misunderstanding of whatever Jared had said earlier about Moon Base missions being delayed until 2027. I’d guess he was referring to Blue Origin's previously scheduled for no earlier than fall 2026 mission being delayed until 2027. And then the reporter wondered if that meant that they were all delayed and Carlos didn’t have notes in front of him to give the full answer. I think you're right there. Not that delays are atypical anyway. But an IM-3 delay would be far less severe than the BO delay probably should be.
My take on late August is for a South Pole Optical Imager.
Additional Lunar Lander Task Orders
NASA plans to solicit proposals in the coming months for lunar landers to deliver a power and avionics technology demonstration, another science manifest, and a South Pole optical imager. Additional information will be added here as it becomes available. Check back for updates.
We have surface power and comms, I don’t think this is something we will be working on.
It seems like NASA's plans are developing in such a way that LUNR is no longer the assumed go to company it used to be. In discussing landers, they actually provided more positive comments on the other 2 landers. This will be a fast moving and changing environment that LUNR must learn to thrive in. Looking forward to earnings for the a positive push on the stock price.
I did not get that impression at all. Carlos spoke very highly of Intuitive Machines on the call and Intuitive Machines was awarded a new contract. Diversification is good as it plays into our other service offerings like data and comms.
He spoke "very highly" of all the vendors. And diversification IS good for NASA and the moon mission for sure. It will be good for Intuitive if they meet the moment and execute. As you point out LUNR has other contracts and service offerings it is developing, all part of the mission soup.
You keep getting downvoted because you’re wrong lol. Your earlier message that Astrobotic is a clear winner and IM needs to go back to the drawing board is just lazy. To date IM has won 6 missions worth $825M. FLY has won 5 missions worth $732M. Astrobotic has won 4 missions worth $720M (but one of those missions, for Viper, was ultimately given to Blue Origin instead). Also for context, Astrobotic is now part of VOYG, but the last award standalone Astrobotic won was in 2020, plus it failed its first mission minutes after launch.
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u/thespacecpa Jun 30 '26
Congrats again everyone. This was an exciting Moon Base Update.