Israel plans to land an unmanned spaceship on the moon in February

Ari Rabinovitch

YEHUD, Israel (Reuters) – A non-profit Israeli group plans to land an unmanned spacecraft on the moon in February during the first landing of its kind since 2013.

L & # The aircraft, which is shaped like a round table with four carbon fiber legs, is expected to take off in December from Cape Canaveral, Fla., Aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, said Ido Anteby, chief executive of the non-profit organization SpaceIL.

It aims to retransmit images and videos to Earth two days after landing on February 13, as well as to measure magnetic fields.

"Our spacecraft will be the smallest ever to land on the moon," said Anteby.

Since 1966, the United States and the former Soviet Union have put on the Moon 12 unmanned spacecraft using braking power to make "soft landings" and China has done so in 2013.

SpaceIL was founded in 2011 by a group of engineers with a budget of about $ 90 million and they had to sacrifice size and operational capabilities for more efficient travel.

The gear, unveiled on Tuesday at Israel Aerospace Industries, the public defense company, has a height of about 1.5 meters and weighs 585 kilograms (1,290 pounds). The spacecraft has four carbon fiber legs and the fuel takes up two-thirds of its weight.

At 60,000 km (37,000 miles) above the Earth, the spacecraft will deploy. It will orbit the Earth in expanding ellipses and, about two months later, will traverse into the orbit of the moon. It will then slow down and make a soft landing causing no damage to the craft.

"The landing is the most complicated part, the chosen location is relatively flat and the spacecraft has visual contact with the Earth for communication," said Anteby. "From the moment the spacecraft reaches the point where it starts the landing, it will manage it completely autonomously."

SpaceIL is supported primarily by private donors, including American casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and billionaire Morris Kahn who co-founded Amdocs, one of Israel's largest high-tech companies. .

(Edited by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)