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Questions about Intuitive Machines IM-1 Lunar Lander


Kerballlistic07

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Intuitive Machines IM-1 Lunar Lander will launch atop a Falcon 9 from LC-39A in Florida in a few weeks on November 16th. My main question here is this:

How will it be fueled? The lander uses liquid methane and liquid oxygen as its propellants, but as far as I'm aware, there is no way to load those from the Falcon 9's transporter-erector through the fairing. I find it hard to believe that it would be fueled in the assembly building. I don't even know if they have liquid methane and liquid oxygen at 39A. Does anyone know how they will fuel the lander?

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I assume they load before closing the fairing.  Lander has to travel to the moon, enter orbit and land so it will spend days in space, couple of hour on pad will not add much more boil off. They have LOX for the rocket. Guess the methane comes from an fuel truck. 
They handle hydrazine who is order of magnitude more dangerous than methane. 
Yes they could exploited vacuum as an insulator better in space but aerogel is not very heavy :) 

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6 hours ago, magnemoe said:

I assume they load before closing the fairing.  Lander has to travel to the moon, enter orbit and land so it will spend days in space, couple of hour on pad will not add much more boil off. They have LOX for the rocket. Guess the methane comes from an fuel truck. 
They handle hydrazine who is order of magnitude more dangerous than methane. 
Yes they could exploited vacuum as an insulator better in space but aerogel is not very heavy :) 

Interesting. I figured that they would just load it before it was put in the fairing, but I also wasn’t sure that was possible. Thanks!:D

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