Good News for Space Stocks: NASA Wants 30 Moon Landings

On Feb. 22, 2024, space company Intuitive Machines (NASDAQ: LUNR) conducted a mostly successful landing of an uncrewed spacecraft on the Moon -- for the first time in 50 years . (It was "mostly" successful because the lander made it onto the Moon safely but then toppled over on its side.)

It wasn't long before other companies, including even Intuitive itself, tried to duplicate and improve the feat. On March 2, 2025, Firefly Aerospace (NASDAQ: FLY) successfully put its Blue Ghost-1 lander on the Moon. Four days later, on March 6, Intuitive's second lander (IM-2) landed on the Moon.

Now NASA wants to land on the Moon 30 more times. So, what could all this mean for investors?

Image source: Getty Images.

To the Moon, Jared!

New NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman revealed the plan to news site Spaceflight Now earlier this month. Over a roughly three-year period beginning in 2027, the space agency hopes to sponsor 30 lunar lander missions to the Moon, launching and landing supplies for a future space base and conducting scientific experiments roughly once per month.

The missions will run under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CPLS) program, which was first announced in 2019, and under which NASA hires independent contractors to perform services on its behalf. And lucky for investors, this gives us a good idea of which companies might be best placed to profit from the effort.

Round up the usual (and a few unusual) suspects

Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace were named in the initial batch of space companies allowed to bid on contracts under CLPS, as was privately owned Astrobotic -- which conducted its own (failed) attempt at a lunar landing in 2024. Among the other named companies and organizations, the most prominent are probably Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) and major private government contractor The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory.

A handful of smaller space start-ups -- some of which have already gone out of business in the years since CLPS first spun up -- also won places within the program, but Intuitive, Firefly, Astrobotic, Lockheed, and Draper appear the most likely beneficiaries of NASA's big push to make lunar landings a regular occurrence starting next year.

To this original list, you can probably add SpaceX -- which may soon also be a publicly traded company -- and Blue Origin. Both companies are developing lunar landers of their own: "Cargo Human Landing System" for SpaceX and "Blue Moon" for Blue Origin. Indeed, as SpaceNews.com points out, Blue Origin is scheduled to launch its Blue Moon Mark 1 lander later this year. Also flying in 2026 (if all goes well) could be Astrobotic (with Griffin 1), Firefly (with Blue Ghost 2), and Intuitive (with IM-3).

Building a Moon base

On Tuesday, March 24, we learned further details about NASA's lunar lander plans when Isaacman published a memo describing the space agency's big-picture plans for the Moon. Phase 1 of this plan begins immediately with the Artemis II crewed mission around the Moon, kick-starting an accelerated tempo of Moon missions. Phase 2 will begin in 2029 with the establishment of a semi-permanent Moon base capable of human habitation. Phase 3 comes in 2032, by which point the Moon base will be sufficiently established for "semi-permanent crew presence."

This all means that 30 lunar lander missions are probably only the beginning. This project will be building up for six years at least, with continuing supply missions thereafter. Phase 1 alone, says Isaacman, will be a "$10 billion effort."

The way Isaacman describes it, the initial effort may favor smaller companies such as Intuitive and Firefly, with the bulk of the landings being done with small craft, while SpaceX and Blue Origin focus on larger, human-capable landers that can carry astronauts to the Moon. Over time, however, as a growing lunar infrastructure requires more supplies to sustain it, landers will get bigger.

This suggests that later phases will favor SpaceX and Blue Origin as the primary contractors, unless and until the smaller companies scale up their original landers. Generally speaking, however, this appears to be a massive effort and a well-thought-out plan. I see potential for multiple space companies to profit from it as NASA's efforts bear fruit.

Rich Smith has positions in Intuitive Machines. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Intuitive Machines. The Motley Fool recommends Lockheed Martin. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.