On February 22, 2024, a six-legged robot the size of a phone booth touched down near the Moon's south pole. It wasn't a NASA spacecraft. It was Odysseus, built by a Houston company called Intuitive Machines, and it became the first American vehicle to soft-land on the Moon since Apollo 17 in December 1972. The achievement came 52 years after the last lunar footsteps, and it arrived not from a government program but from a commercial startup that didn't exist until 2013. The landing wasn't perfect. Odysseus tipped on its side after a last-second altimeter workaround changed the final descent. Still, it transmitted data, completed science objectives, and proved the concept that commercial companies could reach the Moon under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. A year later, Intuitive Machines flew again. The company has since locked in contracts worth nearly $6 billion and is guiding toward $900 million to $1 billion in 2026 revenue. Not bad for a think tank that spent its first years consulting for aerospace clients rather than building rockets. AI-generated image Engineers assemble a Nova-C lander at Intuitive Machines' Houston facility. The company manufactures, integrates, and operates its own spacecraft. $210M 2025 Revenue $943M Combined Backlog (Feb 2026) 2 Lunar Missions Flown 5 NASA CLPS Task Orders $4.82B NSNS Relay Contract $582M Cash on Hand (End 2025) From Think Tank to Launch Provider Steve Altemus, Kam Ghaffarian, and Tim Crain founded Intuitive Machines in Houston in 2013. All three had deep NASA roots. Altemus had spent 30 years at Johnson Space Center, rising to deputy director. Ghaffarian had built Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies into one of NASA's largest contractors before selling it. Crain was a veteran NASA engineer with hardware experience across human spaceflight programs. The company's first years looked nothing like a spacecraft startup. Intuitive Machines operated as an engineering services firm, providing analytical and systems engineering support to NASA and defense customers. That work built cash flow and credibility, but the founders had bigger ambitions. When NASA launched the CLPS program in 2018, soliciting commercial bids to deliver payloads to the Moon, Intuitive Machines was among the first nine companies selected as providers in November 2018. CLPS was designed to be different from traditional government contracts. NASA defined what it wanted delivered to the lunar surface, not how to get there. Companies would design, build, and operate their own landers and pocket the profit if they succeeded. The model drew from NASA's Commercial Crew experience with SpaceX and Boeing, applied now to uncrewed lunar logistics. Intuitive Machines bet its future on this model. The company won its first CLPS task order in 2019 (CP-2) and then a second (CP-11). It began designing the Nova-C lander, a methane and liquid oxygen-fueled vehicle capable of delivering roughly 100 kilograms of payload to the lunar surface. Methane/LOX was an unusual choice for a small lander, but the team believed it offered better performance than traditional storable propellants and aligned with the long-term direction of the industry. In February 2023, the company went public via a SPAC merger under the ticker LUNR on NASDAQ, raising capital to fund its mission manifest. The SPAC structure gave Intuitive Machines access to public markets quickly, though the stock has traded with the volatility typical of early-stage space companies. The IPO valued the company at roughly $815 million at the time of listing. Company Origins: Intuitive Machines spent its first five years as an engineering services firm for NASA and defense clients. The consulting revenue funded development of the Nova-C lander and kept the company solvent before its first CLPS task order arrived in 2019. The Nova-C Lander: Engineering America's Lunar Comeback Nova-C is a hexagonal lander, roughly 4 meters tall, built around a central propellant tank structure. Its single main engine burns liquid methane and liquid oxygen, a propellant combination more commonly associated with large launch vehicles like SpaceX's Raptor than with small lunar spacecraft. Intuitive Machines calls their engine the Virgo 22 , and it generates about 67 pounds of thrust, enough to decelerate the lander from lunar orbit to the surface. AI-generated image The Nova-C lander uses a methane/LOX propulsion system and can deliver up to 100 kg of payload to the lunar surface. Six landing legs extend from the hexagonal body for touchdown stability. The spacecraft carries up to 130 kilograms of payload to lunar orbit and approximately 100 kilograms to the surface, depending on landing site. Payload accommodations include deck mounting positions, power and data interfaces, and telecommunications relay capability. The lander is designed to survive the two-week lunar day, though surviving a lunar night requires specific thermal design not present in the current Nova-C baseline. Key Specifications Parameter Value Propellants Liquid Methane / Liquid Oxygen (LOX) Main Engine Virgo 22 (~67 lbf thrust) Payload to Surface ~100 kg Height ~4 meters Launch Vehicle SpaceX Falcon 9 Operational Life One lunar day (~14 Earth days) Successor Nova-D (heavier cargo class, 2026+) The lander is built, integrated, and tested at Intuitive Machines' facility in Houston. The company owns the entire stack from manufacturing through mission operations, which gives it more control over schedule and cost than a purely service-oriented model. All missions launch aboard SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets. Payloads flown on Nova-C missions have included NASA's PRIME-1 drill (designed to mine water ice from the regolith), Nokia's LTE/4G lunar network demonstration, the MAPP rover built by Lunar Outpost, a Micro-Nova hopper deployed from Odysseus, and a suite of NASA science instruments. The ability to accommodate diverse payloads from government and commercial customers is central to Intuitive Machines' business model. Two Landings, Two Lessons IM-1: Odysseus and the Bent Landing Leg Intuitive Machines' first lunar mission launched on February 15, 2024, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9. The spacecraft, named Odysseus , spent six days in transit before entering lunar orbit. The landing sequence on February 22 targeted Malapert A , a crater near the south pole selected for its proximity to permanently shadowed regions where water ice is believed to exist. The mission nearly ended before landing. During final approach, the crew discovered that a safety switch had been left in the wrong position during pre-launch testing, disabling the spacecraft's laser rangefinders. Without altitude and velocity data from the lasers, the autonomous landing system couldn't function as designed. Flight controllers improvised a fix using a NASA experimental navigation payload called NDL (Navigation Doppler Lidar), which hadn't been intended for flight-critical operations. The workaround worked, but it introduced navigation uncertainties that contributed to what came next. Odysseus landed, but not cleanly. A landing leg caught on a surface feature and the lander tipped, coming to rest at roughly a 30-degree angle. Despite the awkward orientation, the spacecraft transmitted data for approximately six days. Payloads including the Micro-Nova hopper and multiple NASA instruments were deployed or operated successfully. NASA declared the mission a success for science objectives, though the tipped posture limited some operations. IM-1 Fast Facts • Launch: February 15, 2024, SpaceX Falcon 9 • Landing: February 22, 2024, Malapert A (near lunar south pole) • Spacecraft: Odysseus (Nova-C) • Outcome: Tipped on landing, operational for approximately 6 days • Historic first: First US lunar soft landing since Apollo 17, December 1972 • Key payloads: NASA PRIME-1, Nokia LTE demo, Micro-Nova hopper IM-2: Athena and the Altitude Problem Intuitive Machines flew its second mission in February 20