An Israeli group says that it will make a second attempt to land on the moon

On Saturday, just two days after the crash of the Beresheet probe on the moon, the SpaceIL president announced that his organization would go ahead. Morris Kahn said that starting this week, a new task force would learn from its failures and start developing a new plan for a Beresheet 2 spacecraft.

"We will build a new spacecraft, we will install it on the moon and carry out the mission," said Kahn, a billionaire who has personally donated $ 40 million to the private effort Israeli.

Until now, SpaceIL has provided little additional detail about the project, for example when it might be launched. The initial project, which started to win the Google Lunar XPrize, began eight years ago.

In an AMA reddit Sunday, one of the team's engineers, Ben Nathaniel, added this about the new proposal. "Beresheet 2 has just been announced, it will be a major project that will require significant planning, coordination and funding, and at the moment there are so many factors at play that we can not not predict when exactly it will be launched, we still hope to be the first private company to land on the moon. "

Also this weekend, SpaceIL has released preliminary information about what could have gone wrong during the landing attempt, which was conducted autonomously. The first technical problem that occurred about 14 km above the Moon's surface triggered a series of events that resulted in the temporary failure of the main engine of the spacecraft. (This may have involved one of Beresheet's integrated management units (IMUs), or inertial measurement units, but just so that SpaceIL did not specify a cause.). At this altitude, the spacecraft was already engaged to land on the Moon.

Finally, the function of the main engine returned, but at that time, the spacecraft was only 150 meters above the ground and was moving 500 km / h to the surface. Needless to say, it was a terminal speed. SpaceIL engineers plan to conduct "full testing" this week to better understand the sequence of events that caused a temporary outage of the main engine.

In the meantime, the project was hailed for its openness and willingness to fail in front of the public. NASA has been implementing a similar policy since the beginning of its exploration efforts.

"I want to thank @TeamSpaceIL for organizing this landing with millions of viewers around the world, despite the risks involved," said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's chief scientist. tweeted after the attempt to land. "We are doing the same because we believe in the value of global exploration and inspiration and we encourage all international and commercial explorers to do the same!" It seemed like a little subtle boost to China, which recently landed on the other side of the moon, but did not announce it until several hours after the success of its mission.

Listing image by SpaceIL