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YEHUD, Israel – An Israeli organization said Tuesday that it hoped to become the first non-governmental entity to land a spaceship on the moon when it would attempt to launch a module later this year.
SpaceIL and the state Israel Aerospace Industries plans to launch its unmanned gear in December, the team said at a press conference in an IAI facility at the Outside Tel Aviv. If successful, Israel would become the fourth country to land a craft on the moon, after the United States, the Soviet Union and China.
SpaceIL will send the module still unknown to the United States in November before launch. The 1,289-pound barge will land on a SpaceX Falcon rocket to enter Earth's orbit, then launch several times around the planet to reach the Moon. On landing, the craft will relay photographs and collect data on the magnetism of the moon for the research of the Weizmann Institute of Israel
The 95 million project dollars, funded by South African billionaire Morris Kahn and other donors On February 13, Kahn said it would be "a tremendous success".
SpaceIL was founded in 2011 and was originally Google's Lunar Xprize candidate, who challenged private companies to land an unmanned spaceship. But the $ 20-million competition was dropped by the tech giant earlier this year when it became clear that none of the five companies would meet the March deadline.
Despite the financial pitfalls of recent years the December launch will take place on time.
"This project will bring the aerospace industry into the deep space," said Kahn, principal donor and president of SpaceIL. The goal of the mission is not only to place an Israeli spacecraft on the moon, but to inspire a future generation of Israelis to pursue careers in math, science and engineering, said Joseph Weiss, President and CEO of the IAI
. Israel has emerged as a technological titan in recent decades, producing a profusion of high-tech companies and attracting heavy international investment. Most of the module's embedded computers have been developed and produced locally.
The lunar mission is expected to last only two days after landing.
But the SpaceIL team hopes that the establishment of an Israeli module on the moon could help maintain Israel's technological momentum for years to come.
"What we are doing is trying to replicate the Apollo effect in the United States," Kahn told reporters, in reference to the growing interest in science and technology. 39; engineering. The US space program landed on the moon in 1969.
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