By Sabela Ojea

Inflection Point Acquisition Corp. said Friday that it signed a merger agreement with space exploration company Intuitive Machines LLC. that will result in Intuitive Machines becoming publicly listed.

The special-purpose acquisition company said that Intuitive Machines, which is working on NASA's first return of humans to the moon since 1972, is expected be valued at more than $1 billion.

The diversified space exploration and infrastructure company, which has $188 million in secured orders and expects to report revenue of about $102 million in 2022, has been awarded three contracts by the U.S. space agency, more than any other contractor, Inflection Point said.

The Wall Street Journal earlier reported that Intuitive Machines was nearing a merger with a SPAC, or blank-check firm, that could be announced as early as Friday.

The Journal reported Intuitive--founded about a decade ago by industry veterans Steve Altemus, Kam Ghaffarian and Tim Crain--is one of many startups hoping to cash in on an expected boom in space missions driven by NASA and companies including Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp., Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin LLC and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. It aims to avoid some of the business uncertainty that has plagued others in the sector by providing essential infrastructure, software and data to different customers.

Write to Sabela Ojea at sabela.ojea@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 16, 2022 07:39 ET (11:39 GMT)

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