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The unmanned, pod-shaped spacecraft weighing about 585 kilograms (1300 pounds) at launch, will land on the moon on February 13, 2019 if all goes according to plan, SpaceIL organizers said at the launch. a press conference in Yehud. Israel.
The ship will be launched by a rocket from the SpaceX firm of American entrepreneur Elon Musk and his mission will include research on the magnetic field of the moon.
His first task, however, will be to plant an Israeli flag on the moon, according to the organizers.
The project started as part of the Google Lunar XPrize, which in 2010 offered $ 30 million (25 million euros) in rewards to encourage scientists and entrepreneurs to offer relatively inexpensive lunar missions. .
Three young Israeli scientists, Yariv Bash, Kfir Damari and Yonatan Winetraub, decide to join the fray.
"We met in a pub and started discussing what it meant," recalls Damari.
The SpaceIL formed trio and partnered with Israel Aerospace Industries, owned by the state, envisioning a very small craft that they thought could land on the moon in 2013.
"As we moved through the project and more people joined us, we understood its complexity," said Damari.
Although the Google prize expired in March without a winner having reached the moon, the Israel team is committed to moving forward.
Michael Kahn, an Israeli billionaire born in South Africa, who heard SpaceIL present his project, played a key role in the project.
"I thought it was a good idea," he said, "and I asked them," Do you have any money? "
"They did not really think about the financial side," said Kahn, recounting how he gave them an initial grant of $ 100,000, with his growing support for the project to largely cover the project's 95 million dollars.
For Kahn, that Israel has an interest on the moon alongside the three world powers already present – the United States, Russia and China – would be "a tremendous achievement" that "will give us a sense of pride. really need".
– "Safeguard Plans & # 39; – Yossi Weiss, the CEO of IAI, said that conquering space is not just a way to prove technological prowess, but also a need for more and more pressing.
"We have to think about safeguarding plans," Weiss said. "The Earth is getting small" and finally "the future of humanity is in the space".
While the planned landing of the small unmanned vessel is a small step in that direction, it is no less "very important," Weiss said.
On the moon, the ship will transmit the data to the IAI control center for two days before its systems are closed.
It is hoped that the success of the mission will inspire the scientific curiosity of Israeli youth.
"We are trying to replicate the effect of Apollo in the United States," said Kahn, referring to the American program that landed the first humans on the moon in 1969.
"If we want to continue to be the starting country, we have to find engineers."
But even before its launch, the pod and its project have aroused great interest among children, according to Damari.
"They say kids are excited about space, robots and dinosaurs, we have a robotic spacecraft – that's two out of three," he said.
"When you meet school children and talk to them about the project, you can see the spark in their eyes.
"Even though they do not deal with space but enter another scientific or technical area, we have realized the vision."
Damari noted the change that his project has created in the Israeli space industry, which has focused on security-related projects and has long launched satellite launches.
"Since we started, we have seen more and more start-ups and projects that deal with space in the civilian aspect," he said.
The relatively light Israeli project, which was not initiated or funded by the state, could also mark a change in the way space projects are interpreted and realized, paving the way for initiatives more private.
"This will show the way to the rest of the world" to send a spacecraft to the moon at a reasonable cost, said Ofer Doron, chief of the IAI's space division.
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