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Millions of people around the world listened live to watch the SpaceIL ship, carrying an Israeli flag and a nano-Bible, descend on the Serenitatis Mare (Sea of Serenity) of the Moon while the State of Israel was looking to become the fourth member of a prestigious club. nations to accomplish the daunting task of landing a spacecraft on the lunar surface.
SpaceIL lost contact with the satellite just minutes before the end of its historic landing – a feat that only the United States, Russia (then the USSR) and China – had accomplished – after six and a half million epic kilometers, for seven weeks. trip from Beresheet, an ambitious project developed by SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard a SpaceX rocket on 22 February.
For 48 days, the Beresheet ground crew monitored, monitored, and executed all spacecraft maneuvers from a control center at IAI headquarters in Yehud.
Once in the descent position, the landing maneuver – divided into two phases of decreasing and then vertical horizontal speed – began but did not land after the loss of contact with the main engine of the aircraft. spacecraft, which resulted in a loss of altitude and a subsequent landing.
According to initial assessments, one of the spacecraft's inertial measurement units (IMU) failed during the last effort. A full investigation will now begin.
"If at first you fail, you try again and again and we will try again," said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the control center.
"We reached the moon, but we wanted to land more safely. The only attempt is a huge feat. An Israeli satellite will land one day on the moon. "
On the wall of the control center, overlooking the scientists behind the project, a plaque read: "The people of Israel lives. A small country, big dreams, "summarizing the spirit of the company. Unlike all other countries to reach the moon, SpaceIL's achievements have been funded almost entirely by private donors rather than by the government.
"We have been great and we can be very proud," said SpaceIL president and lead donor Morris Kahn.
The spacecraft was designed to photograph his landing site and take a selfie. Its main scientific mission, however, was to measure the magnetic field of the Moon as part of an experiment carried out in collaboration with the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot.
NASA also participated in the mission and installed a laser reflector on the satellite to facilitate communication after the landing. This communication system allowed the space shuttle to transmit an image of the moon from only 22 km. altitude before the unfortunate landing.
"I would like to address to the children who could look in. Yes, we have not reached the Moon in one piece, but engineering and science are difficult," said Yehonatan Weintraub.
"Sometimes it does not work the first, second, third or even fourth time, but eventually it will work, I want to encourage you to continue studying engineering and science, because one day you will be able to reach the moon, the stars and beyond. "
Beresheet was the smallest spacecraft ever built to attempt to reach the Moon, measuring 1.5 meters tall, two meters wide and weighing 600 kg. Fuel accounted for about 75% of its payload. The mission's budget was about 350 million NIS, much less than the other three countries spent on such a mission.
The spacecraft also carried an Israeli flag and a time capsule throughout its journey, containing hundreds of digital files, cultural objects and materials collected by SpaceIL's crew and the general public.
The motivation of younger generations to pursue scientific studies, the Israeli version of "Apollo effect", has remained constant since the beginning of the SpaceIL effort, eight years ago, when co-founders Weintraub, Yariv Bash and Kfir Damari have signed up for the Google Lunar X Prize Challenge.
As the race ended without a winner in March 2018, SpaceIL continued its mission to reach the Moon. The mission failed on Thursday, but SpaceIL still showed that the sky was not really the limit for a small group of Israelis and supporters brave enough to cross it.
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