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Intuitive Machines’ first moon lander also broke ground with safer, cheaper rocket-style propulsion


Intuitive Machines’ first lunar lander officially lost power today after spending seven days on the moon. The lander made history for being the first

To get around this issue, Intuitive Machines and SpaceX started fueling the Nova-C class lander’s VR900 engine (which was built by IM) just three hours before lift-off, when the rocket was on the launch pad and the spacecraft was already inside the payload fairing. That included modifying the launch pad, the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket, and adding an adapter to access the payload fairing when it was already mated to the vehicle. Impulse Space’s high-energy kick stage, Helios, will use cryogens to deliver payloads directly to geostationary orbit, CEO Tom Mueller explained in an interview from January.

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