Copyright Ars Technica
Intuitive Machines announced last week an $800 million acquisition that will catapult the one-time startup into the space industry establishment. The company’s planned purchase of Lanteris Space Systems, a satellite manufacturer you may have never heard of, is rather significant. Lanteris is the latest addition to a line of corporate brands that dates back to 1957. Until last month, the company was known as Maxar Space Systems. Its acquisition by Intuitive Machines would be perhaps the industry’s most evident example of a “New Space” firm buying up an “Old Space” company. The deal would help Intuitive Machines expand beyond its core competency of Moon missions to the broader sector of satellite manufacturing and space services. Lanteris has been owned since 2023 by Advent International, a private equity firm. The transaction is expected to close early next year, subject to “customary regulatory approvals and closing conditions,” according to Intuitive Machines. Importantly, the acquisition of Lanteris will shore up Intuitive Machines’ balance sheet. Intuitive Machines reported $228 million in revenue last year. With Lanteris in the fold, the company predicts its revenue will grow to $850 million, enough to become profitable. “As a standalone company, Lanteris is a cash generating business,” Intuitive Machines said in a press release. “As a combined company, Intuitive Machines expects to have adequate cash on hand for continued operations.” Houston-based Intuitive Machines was founded in 2013 by businessman Kam Ghaffarian and veteran NASA engineers Stephen Altemus and Tim Crain. The company, now traded on the public market, is best known for building commercial robotic lunar landers. Its first two Moon missions, developed under contract to NASA, reached the lunar surface in February 2024 and in March of this year. The IM-1 and IM-2 landers tipped over after touchdown, prompting engineers to make design changes before the company’s next lunar mission in 2026. The company’s success in just reaching the Moon’s surface has put it in position to become one of NASA’s leading lunar contractors. NASA has awarded more robotic lunar lander contracts to Intuitive Machines than to any other company, with two missions complete and at least two more in development. Intuitive Machines is also one of the companies NASA selected to compete for a contract to develop an unpressurized Moon buggy for astronauts to drive across the lunar surface. Branching out The addition of Lanteris will make Intuitive Machines competitive for work outside of the lunar realm. “This marks the moment Intuitive Machines transitions from a lunar company to a multi-domain space prime, setting the pace for how the industry’s next generation will operate,” said Steve Altemus, the company’s CEO. Altemus said Lanteris will initially become a subsidiary of Intuitive Machines, followed by a complete integration under the Intuitive Machines banner. Lanteris builds numerous satellites for the US Space Force, NASA, and commercial customers. The company can trace its history to 1957, when it was established as the Western Development Laboratories division of Philco Corporation, a battery and electronics manufacturer founded in 1892. Philco constructed a satellite factory in Palo Alto, California, and produced its first spacecraft for launch in 1960. The satellite, named Courier 1B, made history as the world’s first active repeater communications relay station in orbit, meaning it could receive messages from the ground, store them, and then retransmit them. The contractor underwent numerous mergers and acquisitions, becoming part of Ford Motor Company, Loral Corporation, and the Canadian company MDA Space before it was bought up by Advent more than two years ago. In nearly 70 years, the company has produced more than 300 satellites, many of them multi-ton platforms for broadcasting television signals from geosynchronous orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator. Lanteris has contracts to build dozens more satellites in the next few years. “They’ve been Ford Aerospace, Space Systems/Loral, Maxar, Lanteris, and now it’ll be Intuitive Machines in the future,” said Altemus, CEO of Intuitive Machines. “It’s an incredible record that they’ve had over their history.” Lanteris is already building satellites for the Pentagon’s Space Development Agency to detect and track ballistic and hypersonic missiles. This places Lanteris, and soon Intuitive Machines, squarely in the supply chain for the military’s planned Golden Dome missile defense shield. “We’re breaking into national security space,” Altemus told Ars. He said Lanteris’ place in the military space market, coupled with future business prospects from Golden Dome and other programs, attracted Intuitive Machines to the idea of an acquisition. Intuitive Machines already had a few lower-level contracts with the Department of Defense to develop an orbital transfer vehicle and technology for in-space nuclear power. Altemus said Lanteris will also bolster his company’s offerings to NASA and other customers. Lanteris is the prime contractor building the core power and propulsion element of NASA’s planned Gateway mini-space station to be positioned near the Moon. Intuitive Machines won a contract from NASA last year to build a small constellation of satellites around the Moon that will beam data back to Earth from the lunar surface. The commercial lunar relay network is a key piece of infrastructure NASA needs to support the Artemis program to return astronauts to the Moon for a lasting presence. The lunar relay services contract could be worth as much as $4.82 billion over the next decade. NASA then selected Intuitive Machines to use its network of ground antennas to provide data links with spacecraft flying in high-altitude orbits, from geosynchronous altitude to the vicinity of the Moon. Bringing together Intuitive Machines’ space network with Lanteris’ satellite manufacturing expertise will give the combined company a “unique” capability to offer customers a one-stop shop for buying both a spacecraft and a means to stream its data back to Earth, Altemus said. He said the company’s purchase of the deep space navigation firm KinetX earlier this year also offers a “competitive advantage” for Intuitive Machines.
