U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the federal civilian space agency that buys lunar-delivery missions, communications and network services, ISS science payloads, and spacecraft hardware under fixed-price and milestone-based contracts. Unlike the Nuclear Regulatory Commission covered in the prior masses-layer entry — a regulator that grants or withholds licenses but pays nothing — NASA is counterparty-shaped: it signs contracts, sets task orders, and pays money, the same transactional posture the Department of War entry described, with the difference that NASA buys civilian exploration and science where the DoW buys defense capability. NASA's program priorities are in flux across the atoms in scope. Redwire's Q1 2026 10-Q records that NASA paused Lunar Gateway development in March 2026, redirecting approximately $20 billion over seven years toward lunar surface systems, with Redwire stating 'the full impact of this policy shift is still being evaluated across the industry.' Intuitive Machines' FY2025 10-K added a risk factor citing the January 20, 2025 executive order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency and uncertainty over NASA funding priorities. Two portfolio holdings carry substantive NASA connections in their thesis-state atoms; the agency's budget posture sits underneath both.

Connection types

1. Prime mission contractor — lunar exploration

Intuitive Machines is a NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) prime contractor running a sequence of fixed-price lunar-delivery missions. IM-2 closed in Q3 2025 at $131.2M total revenue after a March 2025 landing anomaly prevented completion of all mission milestones; all IM-2 contracts were closed out by September 30, 2025 (atom 0001628280-26-019865, risk_factor_deltas[3] and derived[8]). IM-3 carries total estimated fixed-price revenue of $91.3M plus $9.7M constrained, targeted launch window late 2026, and sits in a loss position with its accrued contract loss rising approximately $2.5M in Q1 2026; IM-4 carries $124.5M estimated plus $16.2M constrained, expected launch H2 2027, also in a loss position (atom 0001628280-26-035236, reported_results[15] and reported_results[16]). IM-5, a NASA payload contract awarded March 2026 with targeted launch mid-2030, has total estimated fixed-price revenue of $161.4M excluding $18.3M constrained — the largest CLPS mission by contract value in the atoms in scope (atom 0001628280-26-035236, reported_results[17]). Under the CLPS structure, approximately 10% of each contract price is variable consideration excluded from revenue until successful landing is confirmed.

2. Service provider — communications / network and prior task orders

Beyond lunar landers, the legacy Intuitive Machines service business sold NASA communications and network services. FY2025 standalone revenue was $210.1M, and the decline from $228.0M in FY2024 was driven by NASA OSAM task order cancellations within OMES III (-$71.9M), partially offset by CLPS mission revenue growth (+$25.3M) and Near Space Network (NSN) communications-network growth (+$16.8M) (atom 0001628280-26-019865, reported_results[0]). Q1 2026 legacy-IM organic service revenue declined to approximately $45.1M from $62.5M, with the OMES III OSAM cancellation contributing -$5.5M and LTV contract completion -$6.9M year-over-year (atom 0001628280-26-035236, derived[1]). NASA appears across this service line as both an expanding customer (NSN) and a contracting one (OSAM cancellations).

3. Science / ISS payload contractor

Redwire holds a NASA contract for microgravity science payloads aboard the International Space Station. The Q1 2026 earnings release names a $4.0M NASA contract for new drug development investigations on the ISS among Q1 2026 key contract awards (atom 0001819810-26-000060_ex99-1, quantified_terms[19]). This is the pharmaceutical-crystallization payload line; the connection is a named, dollar-quantified NASA contract within Redwire's Space segment.

4. Program exposure / policy

The NASA program-priority shift is documented in Redwire's Q1 2026 10-Q: NASA paused Lunar Gateway development in March 2026, redirecting approximately $20 billion over seven years toward lunar surface systems, with Redwire stating the full industry impact is still being evaluated (atom 0001819810-26-000063, risk_factor_deltas[2]). On the Intuitive Machines side, the FY2025 10-K added a U.S. government budget-uncertainty risk factor referencing the Department of Government Efficiency executive order and uncertainty over NASA funding priorities (atom 0001628280-26-019865, risk_factor_deltas[4]). This is the agency-level factor sitting under both NASA-connected positions.

Asymmetric geometry

(a) Most NASA-dependent holding. Intuitive Machines is the concentration case. NASA accounted for approximately 78% of FY2025 standalone revenues, down from approximately 90% in FY2024 (atom 0001628280-26-019865, reported_results[9]). On a standalone basis this is a single-customer concentration in the same class as the DoW/SDA dependency the Department of War entry documented for York Space Systems at approximately 99% of Q1 2026 revenue. The January 2026 Lanteris (formerly Maxar Space Systems) acquisition changed the denominator: Lanteris contributed $141.6M of $186.7M Q1 2026 total revenue, and the post-acquisition mix diversifies into government and commercial satellite programs, though combined-entity customer concentration percentages are not disclosed in the atoms (atom 0001628280-26-035236, reported_results[2]). The 78% figure is therefore a standalone-legacy-IM number, and the legacy IM service business it describes is the part of the company most exposed to NASA program direction.

(b) The space-customer overlap. The portfolio's government-space sleeve sits on two separate executive-branch nodes. On the DoW node (see department-of-war.md), RKLB carries the SDA Tracking Layer Tranche 3 award and YSS carries approximately 99% PWSA dependency. On the NASA node, LUNR and RDW carry the connections documented above. Within the atoms in scope, RDW is the only ticker touching both nodes — Defense Tech for DoW and the $4.0M ISS contract for NASA — while LUNR's NASA connection is single-node within the atoms (its Lanteris-era SDA Tranche 3 backlog is referenced but not quantified, and is flagged in LUNR's own not_addressed list). RKLB and YSS, despite being space companies with documented NASA histories in general knowledge, show no NASA connection in their thesis-state atoms; their government-space exposure in the atoms is DoW-only. The space sleeve is doubly government-dependent, but the two agencies are distinct customers with distinct budget cycles.

(c) The NASA budget/program turmoil as a systemic factor. The Gateway pause and the DOGE-linked NASA-funding-uncertainty risk factor function the way Executive Order 14300 functioned in the NRC entry — an agency-level factor sitting under multiple positions. Coverage across the atoms is uneven. RDW's Q1 2026 10-Q documents the Gateway pause explicitly. LUNR's FY2025 10-K documents NASA funding-priority uncertainty as a named risk factor but does not name the Gateway pause specifically. The asymmetry is a possible atom-coverage gap: a lunar-exploration prime contractor running five CLPS missions has direct exposure to a redirect of NASA lunar spending, yet the Gateway pause appears in RDW's atoms and not LUNR's. The main analyst should treat the systemic factor as applying to both holdings even though only RDW's atoms name it.

(d) Probe vs. anchor geometry. Both NASA-connected holdings are probe-tier names, not portfolio anchors. The connection-strength gradient is steep: LUNR's NASA connection is structural and load-bearing — a near-pure-play CLPS contractor whose standalone revenue ran ~78% NASA — while RDW's NASA connection is one named $4.0M contract inside a $97.0M Q1 2026 revenue base, a fraction of one quarter. The Department of War entry already noted RDW as 'the only probe directly touching NASA' on a small share count; this entry confirms RDW's NASA exposure is real but minor relative to LUNR's. Position sizes are not in scope here; the main analyst should overlay dollar weights and check whether LUNR's sizing reflects its single-customer NASA concentration.

Source atoms referenced

• LUNR: 0001628280-26-019865 (10-K, 2026-03-19) — FY2025 NASA ~78% customer concentration, OMES III/OSAM cancellations, NSN growth, IM-2 close, DOGE/NASA funding-uncertainty risk factor; 0001628280-26-035236 (10-Q, 2026-05-15) — IM-3/IM-4 loss-contract status, IM-5 NASA award March 2026 ($161.4M estimated), Q1 2026 legacy-IM organic revenue decline.
• RDW: 0001819810-26-000060_ex99-1 (8-K, 2026-05-06) — $4.0M NASA ISS drug-development contract among Q1 2026 awards; 0001819810-26-000063 (10-Q, 2026-05-07) — NASA Lunar Gateway pause, ~$20B redirect over seven years.