Shares of Intuitive Machines (NASDAQ: LUNR) jumped 10% to around $19 on Friday morning, while Virgin Galactic (NYSE: SPCE) gained 10%, approaching $3.50 per share.
The broader space sector largely ignored the rally, with Rocket Lab (NASDAQ: RKLB) up just 1% to $81.25 and AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ: ASTS) edging up 1% to $72.32.
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) shares were actually down 2% at $138, while Planet Labs (NYSE: PL) gained 1% to $25 and the Procure Space ETF (NASDAQ: UFO) remained essentially flat at around $48.
The rally is a two-name, earnings-driven event concentrated specifically in LUNR and SPCE, with little momentum spreading across the wider space investment complex.
Intuitive Machines actually missed expectations on both revenue and earnings, with Q2 2026 revenue of $206.2 million falling short of the roughly $221.1 million consensus estimate per Fiscal.ai.
Revenue was still more than four times the $50.3 million reported in the same quarter a year earlier, though the GAAP loss widened to $0.29 per share from $0.22, missing the expected $0.10 loss.
Investors are looking past the earnings miss because backlog reached approximately $1.8 billion, up $1.5 billion from the end of 2025, split 37% civil, 49% commercial, and 14% national security.
Year-to-date bookings sit at $1.7 billion, including $1.2 billion during and after Q2, with authority-to-proceed awards that could add another $300 million in the second half of the year.
CEO Steve Altemus stated, “This marks the highest quarterly bookings in company history,” providing investors with a forward-looking reason to overlook the near-term earnings shortfall.
Stifel Financial (NYSE: SF) added momentum by upgrading Intuitive Machines to Buy from Hold this morning, while lowering its price target to $26 from $32 on the stock.
The analyst consensus 12-month target sits at $31.67 per Koyfin, with seven of nine analysts rating the stock a Buy, one at Hold, and one at Sell.
Intuitive Machines maintained full-year 2026 revenue guidance of $900 million to $1 billion, with positive adjusted EBITDA expected, and ended the quarter with $367 million in cash on hand.
Virgin Galactic’s bounce has no fresh catalyst, as SPCE shares had fallen 8% Thursday after the company pushed first commercial service to February 2027 from a prior target of the fourth quarter of 2026.
Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) cut its SPCE price target to $2 from $2.05, keeping an Underweight rating and citing execution risk, meaning today’s move looks like a technical rebound off Thursday’s steep decline.
Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier stated that the $750,000 tranche of spaceflight expeditions was “oversubscribed and booked out ahead of schedule,” offering at least some positive commercial signal for investors watching the stock.
The consensus 12-month price target for SPCE sits at $3.52 per Koyfin, which means Morgan Stanley’s $2 target currently falls below where the shares are actually trading today.
SpaceX is woven into the Intuitive Machines story directly, as LUNR made a $17 million IM-4 milestone payment to SpaceX during the quarter, with IM-3 scheduled for a January-to-March 2027 launch on a Falcon 9 rocket.
The next key tests for Intuitive Machines include whether authority-to-proceed awards are definitized on schedule, with management stating that timing, not demand, is the primary swing factor for meeting full-year guidance.
For Virgin Galactic, the October 2026 captive carry flight test represents the next tangible milestone, while Q3 2026 free cash flow is guided to a negative $95 million to negative $100 million range.
