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April 14 (UPI) – Billionaire Morris Kahn has announced plans for a second attempt to land a spacecraft, Beresheet 2, on the moon for Israel – a project that could take two years.
Saturday, the president of SpaceIL said on Channel 12 Meet the press"We have started something and we have to finish it, we are going to put our flag on the moon."
The Beresheet 1, the first privately funded lunar lander, struck the moon as it attempted a landing on Thursday. Apparently, a technical problem caused his main engine to stop at mid-landing.
Beresheet, whose name means "originally" in Hebrew, was launched at the top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in February. For the next six weeks, he slowly pushed his orbit outward. On April 4, Beresheet was captured by lunar gravity.
Israel became the seventh nation to place a probe in orbit around the moon.
According to the Times of Israel, it would take about two or three years to prepare another prototype for a moon landing, said SpaceIL co-founder Yariv Bash.
Kahn, born in South Africa, said work on the new spacecraft would begin Sunday.
"The response we got was amazing, the amount of thanks and letters is amazing," he said. "Over the weekend, I had time to think about what happened, and the truth is to see all the encouragement and support from people around the world It's incredible.
"It gave me time to think and I thought it would be a shame to leave things like this, I came to announce a new project: Beresheet 2."
Kahn said a mission team would meet on Sunday "to begin work".
After the TV show, he shared a video on Twitter in which he said, "We will complete the mission."
Kahn has funded about 40 percent of the $ 100 million needed to build and launch the satellite, Space.com reported.
The project was a joint venture between his Israeli Israeli organization and Israel Aerospace Industries, funded almost entirely by private donations from well-known Jewish philanthropists, including Kahn, Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, Lynn Schusterman.
"I'm ready to work for that and do everything necessary to make this project go forward," Kahn said. "It's also a good lesson for young people I've said that if you fail, you have to get up and try again and that's an example I have to give them."
Channel 12 announced that the Israeli government would support the project to a certain extent.
The engineers were still studying what had led to the crash of the first spacecraft.
The main machine cut above the surface of the moon and the spacecraft could not brake properly in time to make a soft landing.
"We have not reached the moon in one piece," said Opher Doron, general manager of Israel Aerospace Industries' space division. "It's bad, but engineering and science are difficult, sometimes it does not work the first time, sometimes not the second or third time, but it will work."
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