An Israeli spacecraft reaches the moon – with a crash

Ruth Eglash, the Washington Post

published

2:20 pm PDT, Thursday, April 11, 2019

JERUSALEM – Israel was hoping to become the fourth country to place a spacecraft on the moon on Thursday, but the lunar mission, broadcast live on Israeli TV and social media, went wrong, as the main engine broke down the control center suddenly lost communication with the craft a few minutes before landing.

"We landed, but not as we wished," said Opher Doron, managing director of Israel Aerospace Industries, who helped build the ship, to a crowd of spectators, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The newly re-elected leader told the team of scientists, engineers and contractors gathered at the Yehud Control Center in central Israel that they were not to not be disappointed and that it was always a great success. Israel, he said, will again try to reach the moon and land properly.

"We have reached the moon, but we want to land more comfortably and there will be another attempt, the experience itself is a tremendous feat, we will become the fourth country to land on the moon if we persevere," he said. -he declares. . "As far as I am concerned, the eagle has landed, the state of Israel is taking off – next time it is even better."

A little earlier, he had said that for the unmanned spaceship named Beresheet, the Hebrew word for Genesis, the first book of the Bible, to make such a trip "was a big step for humanity and a big step for Israel ".

Morris Kahn, president of SpaceIL, who piloted this complex and ambitious project, said: "Israel has gone to the moon.Beresheet's journey is not over.I am waiting for what the next generation of Israel is completing the mission for us. "

The $ 100 million initiative was almost entirely funded by Jewish donors and foundations around the world, although some government agencies offered their support. Kahn, a millionaire born in South Africa, "offered" the project to Israel and declared it a national project. He said he hoped that this initiative would significantly contribute to future space exploration and would also encourage a new generation of Israeli children to embrace science and realize that anything was possible.

Measuring 1.5 meters in height and two meters in diameter, Beresheet was the smallest and cheapest spacecraft ever to have traveled from Earth to the moon, project officials said.

On February 21, aboard the Earth's atmosphere, the spacecraft moored to a Falcon 9 commercial rocket belonging to SpaceX of Elon Musk, from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

In the last seven weeks, Beresheet has traveled a total distance of about 4 million kilometers, circling the Earth several times before reaching the moon 's orbit on April 4. The craft had begun to prepare for landing on a flatter part of the rocky surface of the moon and just before. he crashed managed to capture an image of the moon showing how far she was about to complete her mission.

Seven countries have attempted to land on the moon, but only three have succeeded so far – the first unmanned landing was carried out by the former Soviet Union in 1966, then American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin reached the Moon in 1969 and in 2013 unmanned landing by China. All were government-sponsored enterprises.

Beresheet's idea began in 2010, when three young Israeli entrepreneurs signed up to compete for the now defunct Google Lunar X Award. Yariv Bash, Kfir Damari and Yonatan Weintraub were hoping to win the $ 20 million prize by landing on the moon of an unmanned spaceship built by Israel. Although they did not manage to win the prize – no one did – they later created SpaceIL.

The project has not only benefited from financial support from private investors, but also from Israeli government agencies such as Israel Aerospace Industries and the Israeli Space Agency. It is these relationships that made it possible last summer to facilitate agreements with NASA and Musk & # 39; s SpaceX.

Israelis have already experienced their share of disappointment and tragedy in space travel. The only Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon, was one of seven crew members of the Space Shuttle Columbia when it disintegrated during its reentry into the Earth 's atmosphere in 2003.