A lot of things can change in a decade.
Ten years ago, when NASA's decision to return to the moon was just getting underway, I lamented the fact that all the contracts the space agency was awarding were going to privately owned space companies. NASA was going to the moon, but without public stocks to invest in, it would be hard for investors to come along for the ride.
Ten years later, though, a handful of New Space companies have finally gone public, and as NASA keeps handing out contracts and boosting the revenues of space start-ups, there's a chance even more companies will IPO in coming years. Within the context of NASA's high-profile Project Artemis, aerospace giants such as Boeing (BA 0.68%), Lockheed Martin (LMT 0.81%), and L3Harris (LHX -0.21%) may get most of the work. Larger private players such as SpaceX and Blue Origin, building lunar landers, still dominate headlines, too.
But in the very near future, some of the biggest developments in moon news will be coming from a handful of small space stocks that you may not even have heard of. Here are four such space companies you should be watching as 2025 gets underway.
Firefly Aerospace
On Wednesday this week, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center. On board: two separate small lunar landers from two separate space companies -- both headed to the moon.
The first of these landers was manufactured by space company Firefly Aerospace. Dubbed the Blue Ghost, the trapezoidal spacecraft measures two meters high by 3.5 meters wide at its base, and is designed to carry 150 kg of payload to the lunar surface. From launch to landing, Blue Ghost will spend 45 days traveling to the moon, arriving on March 2.
Interestingly, Firefly Aerospace actually operates its own fleet of Alpha-class rocketships. You wouldn't think it would need to ask SpaceX for a lift to the moon. But Alpha's payload capacity is only 1 ton to low Earth orbit (much less the moon), whereas Blue Ghost masses 2.7 tons. Firefly is, however, working on a new, more robust rocket, called the MLV, which it expects to fly in 2026.
If that's successful -- and this moon mission succeeds as well -- it's entirely possible that within the next couple of years, Firefly will be able to deliver payloads to the moon entirely under its own power.
ispace Japan
The second lunar lander that SpaceX launched Wednesday is ispace's Resilience. Smaller than Firefly's lander, Resilience masses only one ton and has a payload capacity of only 30 kg. Resilience's payload does, however, include a tiny lunar rover called Tenacious, which should make for an exciting mission if all goes right.
Resilience is ispace's second attempt at a moon landing. In 2023, a Hakuto-R lander similar to Resilience crash-landed on the moon after running out of fuel. This second attempt is scheduled to arrive at the moon no sooner than May 2025.
Intuitive Machines
Curiously, that means the only one of these three space companies that is also a publicly traded stock will probably arrive at the moon before Resilience, despite launching later.
In 2024, Intuitive Machines (LUNR 1.31%) stunned the world with a mostly successful landing on of its IM-1 Odysseus lander on the moon. NASA has rewarded Intuitive with a total of three more lander contracts, and the first of these (dubbed the IM-2 mission) is expected to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 sometime in Q1 this year. It should arrive at the moon about one week later.
Once again, Intuitive will be launching a NOVA-C lander, this time named Athena, with a payload similar in size to Firefly's -- about 100 to 130 kg. The company's primary goal will be to drill for evidence of water near the Shackleton Crater at the lunar south pole. Interestingly, though, Athena will also be carrying communications equipment from Nokia, and will test the functionality of Nokia's LTE 4G communications system on the moon.
This part of the mission appears to tie in to a huge NASA contract that Intuitive Machines won shortly after its first landing success: a 10-year contract that could be worth up to $4.8 billion for the space upstart, to build a communications relay system between Earth orbit and the moon.
As the first U.S. company to land on the moon since the Apollo era, and the only one of these companies going to the moon this year that has already landed on the moon, Intuitive Machines probably has the best chances of succeeding this year.
From an investor's perspective, a second success by Intuitive Machines would give the most reason to applaud, seeing as currently, Intuitive Machines is the only one of these three companies that is also a publicly traded stock.
Astrobotic
Still, one final 2025 moon mission bears mentioning: Astrobotic. According toPayload Space, sometime later this year a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket will carry the largest lander, to date, to the moon. Astrobotic's Griffin measures 2 meters tall by 4.5 meters at its base. With a payload capacity of 625 kg, it's about 4 times more capable than any of the other companies' landers.
Griffin also weighs quite a lot, massing six tons in total, which probably makes it too big for a Falcon 9 to launch, which explains why it's flying aboard a Falcon Heavy.
Long story short, investors still have a long wait ahead of them before either SpaceX or Blue Origin lands humans on the moon. Already in 2025, however, SpaceX is playing a huge role in getting other companies' uncrewed landers to the moon. This should help lay the groundwork for subsequent crewed missions by generating data on where to go, and delivering supplies to meet the astronauts when they arrive.
If, in the process, it sets up some of these private space companies to IPO and become publicly traded space stocks, then that's just icing on the moon cake.
