Houston space co. secures $4.8B NASA contract to provide communications, navigation services

near space exploration

Per the contract, Intuitive Machines will provide near space communications and navigation services for NASA. Photo via NASA.gov

Houston-based space exploration, infrastructure, and services company Intuitive Machines has snagged a deal with NASA that could be worth more than $4 billion.

Under the contract, Intuitive Machines (Nasdaq: LUNR, LUNRW) will supply communication and navigation services for missions in the “near space” region, which extends from the earth’s surface to beyond the moon.

The five-year deal includes an option to add five years to the contract. In total, the contract could be worth $4.82 billion. The initial round of NASA funding runs from October 2024 through September 2029.

“This contract marks an inflection point in Intuitive Machines’ leadership in space communications and navigation,” Steve Altemus, CEO of Intuitive Machines, says in a news release.

Under the deal, the company will deploy lunar relay satellites and provide communication and navigation services that play a role in NASA’s Artemis campaign to establish a long-term presence on the moon.

A highlight of the contract is the debut of Intuitive Machines’ lunar satellite constellation, a service that the company “believes is a strategic element in its vision to commercialize lunar activities.” The constellation will deliver data and transmission services and enable autonomous operations.

Earlier this month, Intuitive Machines secured its fourth contract with NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, program. The $116.9 million agreement will task Intuitive Machines with delivering six science and technology payloads, which will include one European Space Agency-led drill suite to the Moon’s South Pole.

Additionally in August, Intuitive Machines signed a deal with Houston-based launch services company SEOPS to offer lunar rideshare services. Under the deal, Intuitive Machines will enable SEOPS to deliver customers' payloads to the surface of the moon, as well as to Lagrange points and geostationary transfer orbits.

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U.S. Congressman Jake Ellzey made the announcement in Dallas last week. Photo courtesy of Google

Google to invest $1B in data center tech, clean energy in Texas

coming in hot

Google is making a big investment in Texas to the tune of $1 billion.

According to a news release from the company, the tech giant will spend more than $1 billion to support its cloud and data center infrastructure and expand its commitment to clean energy.

The $1 billion will be spent on data center campuses in Midlothian and Red Oak to help meet growing demand for Google Cloud, AI innovations, and other digital products and services such as Search, Maps, and Workspace.

In addition to its data center investment, Google has also forged long-term power purchase agreements with Houston-based Engie, as well as Madrid-based entities Elawan, Grupo Cobra, and X-ELIO for solar energy based in Texas. Together, these new agreements are expected to provide 375 MW of carbon-free energy capacity, which will help support Google’s operations in Texas.

These agreements were facilitated through LEAP (LevelTen Energy’s Accelerated Process), which was co-developed by Google and LevelTen Energy to make sourcing and executing clean energy PPAs more efficient, and contributes to the company’s ambitious 2030 goal to run on 24/7 carbon-free energy on every grid where it operates.

The company has contracted with energy partners to bring more than 2,800 megawatts (MW) of new wind and solar projects to the state. Google’s CFE percentage in the ERCOT grid region, which powers its Texas data centers, nearly doubled from 41 percent in 2022 to 79 percent in 2023.

The initiatives were announced at a conference in Midlothian on August 15, attended by business leaders and politicians including U.S. Congressman Jake Ellzey, c, Ted Cruz, and Citi CIO Shadman Zafar.

The Dallas cloud region is part of Google Cloud's global network of 40 regions that delivers services to large enterprises, startups, and public sector organizations.

In a statement, Piazza said that "expanding our cloud and data center infrastructure in Midlothian and Red Oak reflects our confidence in the state's ability to lead in the digital economy."

Data centers are the engines behind the growing digital economy. Google has helped train more than 1 million residents in digital skills through partnerships with 590 local organizations, including public libraries, chambers of commerce, and community colleges.

In addition to its cloud region and Midlothian data center, Google has offices in Austin, Dallas, and Houston. The new Google’s total investment in Texas to more than $2.7 billion.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Intuitive Machines has successfully launched its lunar lander, which, once it lands on the moon, would be the first commercial vehicle to do so. Photo via Intuitive Machines

Houston space tech co. makes history with lunar lander launch

one small step

Houston-based Intuitive Machines just made one giant leap for mankind.

On February 15, the space exploration, infrastructure, and services company successfully launched its IM-1 mission Nova-C class lunar lander on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. The launch followed a one-day delay.

The lunar touchdown of the Odysseus spacecraft is set for February 22, according to The Washington Post.

“If all goes well … it will become the first American spacecraft to gently set down on the moon’s surface since the Apollo 17 moon landing in 1972,” The New York Times notes.

It also would be the first commercial vehicle to land on the moon.

The IM-1 mission lander launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:05 a.m. CST. The lunar lander reached its orbit about 48 minutes later, and made its first communication with Intuitive Machines’ mission operations center in Houston at 12:59 a.m. CST.

The Intuitive Machines IM-1 mission is the company’s first attempted lunar landing as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, a key part of NASA’s Artemis moon exploration efforts. The science and technology payloads sent to the moon’s surface as part of the initiative are aimed at gearing up for human missions and a sustainable human presence on the moon’s surface.

NASA is the primary customer for this mission, paying Intuitive Machines $118 million to take its payloads to the moon’s surface, including a stereo camera to observe the plume of dust kicked up during landing and a radio receiver to measure the effects of charged particles on radio signals, according to The Times. Also aboard is cargo such as a camera built by students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, and the Moon Phases project by American artist Jeff Koons.

“We are keenly aware of the immense challenges that lie ahead,” Steve Altemus, co-founder, president and CEO of Intuitive Machines, says in a news release. “However, it is precisely in facing these challenges head-on that we recognize the magnitude of the opportunity before us: to softly return the United States to the surface of the Moon for the first time in 52 years.”

The liftoff of the IM-1 mission was targeted for a multiday launch window that opened at 11:57 p.m. CST on February 13. Intuitive Machines and SpaceX had concluded pre-launch testing on February 12.

“I feel fairly confident that we’re going to be successful softly touching down on the moon,” Altemus told The New York Times. “We’ve done the tests. We tested and tested and tested. As much testing as we could do.”

Last year, Intuitive Machines went public through a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) merger with Inflection Point Acquisition Corp. The Houston company’s stock trades on the NASDAQ stock market. Following the launch of the lunar lander, Intuitive Machines saw a spike in its stock price on February 15.

A Rice University study will consider how "design strategies aimed at improving civic engagement in stormwater infrastructure could help reduce catastrophic flooding." Photo courtesy of Kinder Institute

Rice University secures NSF support to look into Houston flooding

troubled waters

Houston will be the setting of a new three-year National Science Foundation-funded study that focuses on a phenomenon the city is quite familiar with: flooding.

Conducted by Rice University, the study will consider how "design strategies aimed at improving civic engagement in stormwater infrastructure could help reduce catastrophic flooding," according to a statement.

The team will begin its research in the Trinity/Houston Gardens neighborhood and will implement field research, participatory design work and hydrological impact analyses.

Rice professor of anthropology Dominic Boyer and Rice's Gus Sessions Wortham Professor of Architecture Albert Pope are co-principal investigators on the study. They'll be joined by Phil Bedient, director of the Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters Center at Rice, and Jessica Eisma, a civil engineer at the University of Texas at Arlington.

According to Boyer, the study will bring tougher researchers from across disciplines as well as community members and even elementary-aged students.

"Our particular focus will be on green stormwater infrastructure—techniques like bioswale, green roofs and rain gardens—that are more affordable than conventional concrete infrastructure and ones where community members can be more directly involved in the design and implementation phases,” Boyer said. “We envision helping students and other community members design and complete projects like community rain gardens that offer a variety of beneficial amenities and can also mitigate flooding.”

Rice's Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters Center, or SSPEED Center, is a leader in flood mitigation research and innovation.

In 2021, the center developed its FIRST radar-based flood assessment, mapping, and early-warning system based on more than 350 maps that simulate different combinations of rainfall over various areas of the watershed. The system was derived from the Rice/Texas Medical Center Flood Alert System (FAS), which Bedient created 20 years ago.

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This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

Virgin Trains may be speeding into Texas. Photo courtesy of Virgin Trains

Transportation company steers talk of high-speed trains between Houston, Austin, and San Antonio

ALL ABOARD?

You've likely heard of the proposed high-speed "bullet" train that would connect Houston and Dallas, as well as the proposed transportation-in-a-tube concept that would link Houston, Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, and Laredo.

Now, another possible alternative to planes, Amtrak trains, and automobiles has chugged into the picture.

Virgin Trains USA, a transportation startup that plans to trade its shares on the Nasdaq stock exchange, is exploring two high-speed routes in Texas — one tying together Houston, Austin, and San Antonio, and the other between Houston and Dallas. All four of those cities are plagued by ever-increasing traffic tie-ups.

There's no word yet on when these routes might take shape. At this point, they're merely ideas, and ahead of the company going public, officials at Virgin Trains are staying mum.

In all, Virgin Trains has outlined seven potential routes in the U.S. beyond what it already has on the drawing board.

"Our goal is to build railroad systems in North America that connect major metropolitan areas with significant traffic and congestion," the company says in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Virgin Trains aims to tie together heavily populated cities separated by 200- to 300-mile distances that are "too long to drive, too short to fly." It wants to run the trains along existing transportation corridors — rail, highway or a combination of the two — "to cost-effectively build our systems, as opposed to developing entirely new corridors at potentially significantly higher costs."

If the Virgin name sounds familiar, it should. British billionaire Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group is a minority investor in Virgin Trains, which already operates a South Florida route between Miami and West Palm Beach. West Palm Beach-to-Orlando and Orlando-to-Tampa routes also are in the works in Florida, in addition to a Los Angeles-to-Las Vegas route. Virgin's other transportation investments include airlines and space travel.

Jim Mathews, president and CEO of the Rail Passengers Association, says he's on board with the Branson-backed Virgin Trains venture — not as an "anti-Amtrak" move but as an advancement in U.S. passenger rail travel.

"Speaking from the experience of someone who spent almost his entire career watching Sir Richard innovate, invest, and take risks, I firmly believe this could be a real shot in the arm for passenger rail in the United States," Mathews writes on the association's website. "Like all entrepreneurs, Sir Richard isn't afraid to fail, and he has made a few bad bets in the past. But he's also made some very good ones, and has transformed not just travel but philosophies wherever he has gone."

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This story originally ran on CultureMap.

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Axiom Space launches Japanese subsidiary, names leadership

Axiom Space is setting up a Japanese subsidiary to tap into billions of dollars worth of business opportunities in the vast Asia-Pacific region. The company’s new office in Japan will open July 1.

“For the Asia-Pacific region, an Axiom Space presence in Japan means a long-term, direct path to low-Earth orbit for research, for industry, for astronauts, and a partner committed to building that future together with Japan,” Jonathan Cirtain, president and CEO of Axiom Space, said in a news release.

Asia-Pacific spaceflight leaders include Japan, China, India and South Korea.

Until committing to the Asia-Pacific subsidiary, Axiom focused primarily on the U.S. market for space exploration equipment, technology and services. Axiom is building the successor to the International Space Station (ISS), and it provides human spaceflight services and develops next-generation spacesuits.

Fortune Business Insights estimates the Asia-Pacific market for space technology was valued at $155.3 billion in 2025.

“The region is rapidly expanding due to rapidly expanding government space programs, increasing private sector participation, and rising demand for satellite services across densely populated regions,” says Fortune Business Insights, a market research firm.

The region’s combination of strategic investments, market demand and emerging entrepreneurial systems positions Asia-Pacific “for the fastest growth in the global market,” Fortune Business Insights says.

The market research firm pegs the U.S. market for space technology at $251.8 billion in 2025, making it the world’s largest player in that sector.

Veteran Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata will lead Axiom Space Japan as chief technology officer in the Asia-Pacific region. The Japanese subsidiary will work with government agencies, research institutions, and industrial partners in Japan to expand hardware development and manufacturing, microgravity research and orbital computing.

Wakata was the Japanese space agency’s first program manager for ISS and the station’s first Japanese commander. He also contributed to the construction of ISS, including the Japanese experiment module Kibo. Wakata retired from the Japanese agency, JAXA, in March 2024.

“Japan intends to remain a leading nation in human space exploration post-ISS, and Japanese industry and academia are ready to play a central role in the commercial era,” Axiom Space said in the release. “Axiom Space Japan is how the company will meet that ambition with a long-term, on-the-ground presence.”

Houston investment firm closes $105M energy venture fund

seeing green

Houston-based investment firm Veriten has announced the initial close of its second flagship energy venture fund with more than $105 million in capital commitments.

Fund II will build on Veriten’s initial fund and aim to support “scalable technology solutions for energy, power and industrial applications,” according to a company news release.

"Our differentiated network, research-driven process, and first principles approach to investing are having an impact across multiple verticals including traditional energy, electrification, and industrial technology. Fund II builds on that platform,” John Sommers, partner, investments at Veriten, added in the release. “In this environment, the differentiator isn't capital – it's all about connectivity, deep sector expertise, and an economically-driven approach. As new technologies and approaches develop at breakneck speed, the need for more reliable, affordable energy and power continues to grow dramatically. The current backdrop accentuates the need for Veriten's solution."

Veriten is supported by over 50 strategic partnerships in the energy, power, industrial and technology sectors, including major players like Halliburton and Phillips 66.

"Veriten continues to build a differentiated platform at the intersection of energy, technology and industry expertise," Jeff Miller, chairman and CEO of Halliburton, said in the release. "We were early believers in the team and their ability to identify practical solutions to real challenges across the energy value chain. As all industries increasingly adopt digital tools, automation and AI-enabled technologies to improve performance and execution, we are proud to partner with Veriten again to help accelerate high-impact solutions across the broader energy landscape."

Veriten closed its debut fund, NexTen LP, of $85 million in committed capital in October 2023. It was launched in January 2022 by Maynard Holt, co-founder and former CEO of the energy investment bank Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co.

It has invested in Houston-based AI-powered electricity analytics provider Amperon and led a $12 million Seed 2 funding round for Houston-based Helix Technologies to scale manufacturing of its energy-efficient commercial HVAC add-on earlier this year. In the past year it has contributed to funding rounds for San Francisco-based Armada and Calgary-based Veerum.

Veriten also named Nick Morriss as its new managing director earlier this month. Morriss most recently served as vice president of business development at next-generation nuclear technology company Natura Resources and spent nearly 20 years at NOV Inc.

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This article originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

Here's how Houston ranks among the best U.S. cities to start a career

New Horizons

College graduates staying in Houston are in the right place to be, according to a new WalletHub study. Houston has emerged on a new list of the 100 best places in America for starting a career.

Houston ranked 51st out of 182 U.S. cities based on its quality of life and vast opportunities for new college graduates transitioning into the workforce. The study compared each city based on 25 relevant metrics, like the availability of entry-level jobs, each city's annual job growth rate, workforce diversity, median annual income, housing affordability, and others.

Atlanta, Orlando, and Austin respectively comprised the top three best places to start a career.

Houston ranked 48th overall for its quality of life, and appeared No. 51 for its professional opportunities for new college graduates. Whether its starting a new business or entering a high-earning job field, Houston has many more opportunities than the vast majority of other cities on the list.

"The best cities for starting a career not only have a lot of job opportunities but also provide substantial income growth potential and satisfying work conditions," said WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo. "It’s also important to consider factors such as how fun a city is to live in or how good of a place it is for raising a family, to ensure life satisfaction outside of your career."

Other Texas hotspots for early career professionals
Austin boasts the best quality of life out of all 182 cities in the report, and the 10th best professional opportunities. The state capital also outperformed all other U.S. cities with the highest monthly average starting salaries for early career workers after being adjusted for the city's cost of living. Austin also offers the 15th highest number of entry level jobs per capita, the report said.

In a separate comparison of the cities with the largest share of residents aged 25 to 34, Austin ranked No. 5 nationally.

"In addition, Austin’s median annual household income is the 10th-highest in the nation, providing strong earning potential for those starting a career or a business," the report said. "Austin is also the sixth best city for singles, offering a vibrant social scene alongside strong career opportunities for young professionals."

Elsewhere in Texas, Dallas ranked as the second-best city in Texas for new grads to start a career and 12th nationally. Additional cities that made it into the top 100 best U.S. cities for early career professionals include Plano (No. 32), Irving (No. 42), Fort Worth (No. 64), Amarillo (No. 73), and San Antonio (No. 85).

The top 10 best cities for starting a career are:

  • No. 1 – Atlanta, Georgia
  • No. 2 – Orlando, Florida
  • No. 3 – Austin, Texas
  • No. 4 – Tampa, Florida
  • No. 5 – Miami, Florida
  • No. 6 – Charleston, South Carolina
  • No. 7 – Pittsburgh
  • No. 8 – Knoxville, Tennessee
  • No. 9 – Salt Lake City, Utah
  • No. 10 – Columbia, South Carolina
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This article first appeared on CultureMap.com.

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