LUNR Stock Just Jumped 37% — But Is Intuitive Machines Actually Worth the Hype?

Intuitive Machines has been constructing something truly unique somewhere in Houston’s Johnson Space Center neighborhood, where the roads are lined with aerospace contractors who have spent decades circling the periphery of NASA’s aspirations and the air smells slightly of jet fuel. Not merely landers. A tale. And recently, that story has been causing the stock to move in ways that are hard to explain using only financial logic, which, depending on your personality, can be either exciting or frightening.

On April 2, 2026, LUNR closed at $23.99, up 18.53% in a single day and reaching a 52-week high of $24.30 intraday on volume of over 40 million shares, more than three times the daily average. That was the punctuation during a week when the stock increased by about 37% overall. For comparison, the 52-week low was $6.14. Therefore, this has either been an amazing experience or a very frustrating one, depending on when you purchased.

The catalyst was layered immediately. In late March, NASA gave Intuitive Machines a $180.4 million task order for the IM-5 mission, which is the company’s biggest and most technically challenging project to date. It calls for the larger Nova-D lander to transport seven payloads to the lunar south pole. Then, on April 1st, Artemis II successfully launched from Kennedy Space Center, launching a crew toward the Moon for the first time since Apollo 17. Investor sentiment was affected by that launch in a way that a press release seldom does: it gave the entire company a sense of realism that is difficult to achieve with quarterly earnings reports. All space stocks moved, with Iridium rising 18% and Planet Labs rising 16% in the same week. Simply put, intuitive machines moved the most.

The company’s business model is in an area that most investors have never really explored, so it’s worth taking a moment to consider what the company actually does. Rockets are not made by Intuitive Machines. It constructs landers, which are vehicles that ride atop another person’s rocket, separate, travel to the Moon, and try to land undamaged while carrying cargo. The word “attempt” is crucial. The Odysseus lander was placed on the lunar surface by the IM-1 mission in February 2024, marking the first American soft landing since Apollo. Additionally, it tipped sideways upon touchdown, which hindered communication. It was deemed a partial success by NASA. Not much improved for the IM-2 Athena lander in early 2025, which reached the Moon in March and settled into a crater after the altimeter malfunctioned during descent. It’s sliding into home base, according to the CEO. That framing has a certain obstinate optimism that either highlights the team’s tenacity or shows that the business is still learning lessons at great cost.

Nevertheless, the stock has increased. It’s difficult to ignore that part. A company that continues to burn through cash, two missions with problematic landings, negative operating margins that hover around negative 42%, and a price-to-sales ratio that is above 13—roughly four times the S&P 500 average. When viewed alone, the numbers are uncomfortable to read. The return on assets is extremely low. There is a negative free cash flow. Over the past 12 months, the company’s revenue has decreased by more than 9%. According to the majority of traditional valuation frameworks, LUNR appears pricey for the services it currently provides.

The current financials are not what investors appear to be purchasing. It’s the design of the future. In order to position itself less as a delivery service and more as the initial utility layer of a commercial lunar economy, Intuitive Machines has been developing a more comprehensive infrastructure thesis, including Lunar Access Services, Orbital Services, Lunar Data Services, Space Products, and Infrastructure. The first of five data relay satellites will be launched by the IM-3 mission. The cargo capacity of IM-4 and IM-5 comes next. Although shocking for a business this size, the $800 million acquisition of Lanteris Space Systems announced in November 2025 shows that management isn’t thinking small. It’s also possible that the acquisition adds complexity right when execution needs to be clear and targeted.

All of this is overshadowed by the SpaceX factor. Early in April, there were rumors that SpaceX had discreetly submitted IPO paperwork, possibly aiming for a valuation close to $1.75 trillion. The space industry would receive a lot of attention from investors if that IPO takes place and does as some have predicted. It would also likely raise the water level for all boats in the harbor, including LUNR. A SpaceX public listing, according to investors, would validate the commercial space market in ways that NASA press conferences and congressional budget cycles have never quite managed. That makes sense. In another version of this, SpaceX’s enormous size makes everyone else seem insignificant in contrast.

For now, at least, the technical picture appears promising. LUNR is currently trading significantly above both its 200-day exponential moving average of $14.51 and its 20-day exponential moving average of about $18.96. As of early April, real volume was pushing through the resistance zone between $21 and $25. It’s really unclear if that holds true because this stock has experienced tremendous volatility throughout its public life, and there isn’t a clear reason to think that will change.

As all of this is happening, it seems like LUNR is one of those uncommon stocks that serves as a stand-in for something much bigger than itself: a collective wager on whether or not humans will truly return to the Moon and whether or not there will be a thriving commercial economy there. There have been flaws in the landers. The money is tight. However, the missions continue to launch, the contracts continue to come in, and the narrative continues to attract new followers.

By any textbook measure, that combination might not support the valuation. However, textbooks were not designed with lunar south poles in mind.