An Israeli spacecraft takes a selfie before crashing on the moon

The Israeli spacecraft Beresheet, the first privately financed lunar mission, crashed on the lunar surface yesterday, but not before having managed to take this selfie with the Moon in the background .

Beresheet was sent to the moon to take photos with high-resolution cameras and conduction experiments, but it appears that the main engine broke down while the spacecraft was attempting a soft landing.

Israel is now the fourth country to send a device to the surface of the moon, although the last three (the former Soviet Union, the United States and China) have managed to put their spacecraft intact.

One of the interesting aspects of the Beresheet mission was the extremely low costs associated with sending the robotic photographer to the moon: this only required about 100 million dollars and it was possible to do the travel on a budget by hitchhiking. on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on February 22nd.

While a trip into the moon on a dedicated rocket normally only takes a few days, Beresheet spent weeks using Earth's gravity to rock it to the moon 15 times further (in terms of distance traveled) than normal missions, according to the same source. BBC News.

"While NASA regrets the end of the SpaceIL mission without a successful lunar landing of the Beresheet lander, we congratulate SpaceIL, the Israeli aerospace industries and the State of Israel for the incredible exploit sending the first mission funded by private funds on lunar orbit, "said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. "Each attempt to reach new milestones opens up opportunities for us to learn, adjust and move forward. I have no doubt that Israel and SpaceIL will continue to explore and look forward to celebrating their future achievements. "