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The first Israeli lunar lander managed to get to the vicinity of the moon.
The robotic spaceship, known as Beresheet, launched its main machine for about 60 seconds into Earth orbit today (March 19), said members of the project team. The maneuver considerably raised Beresheet's orbit, pushing its apogee, or the farthest point of the Earth, to 405,000 km.
"C & # 39; [high] enough to reach the distance from the Moon to Earth, and this is actually our last maneuver to get closer to the Moon, "said Opher Doron, general manager of Israel Aerospace Industries' (IAI) space division, in an update today. (IAI and the non-profit organization SpaceIL jointly manages the mission of Beresheet.)
"We are on the way to the moon with great success right now," added Doron.
Related: The first Israeli moon Lander Beresheet in pictures
The mission team will perform some small maneuvers over the next few days to slightly alter the elliptical trajectory of Beresheet, he said. But the LG remains on track to be captured in orbit around the moon on April 4th and landing on April 11th.
It will be a historic touch. To date, only three superpowers – the Soviet Union, the United States and China – have managed to land softly on a satellite. And Beresheet does things cheaply; The total cost of the mission, including launch, is about 100 million, said team members.
Beresheet (whose name means "early" in Hebrew) started as a participant in the $ 30 million Google Lunar X Prize contest, which challenged privately funded teams to pose a robot. on the moon and to perform some tasks there. The contest ended in March 2018 with no winner, but SpaceIL and IAI continued to work on their lander, along with other former participants.
Beresheet, which measures 5 feet tall (1.5 meters), will gather scientific data on and around the moon, but its main purpose is to advance Israel's space program and spark interest. young people for science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Beresheet has encountered some problems since its February 21 launch at the top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. For example, the mission team found that satellite star trackers, which are essential for navigation, are surprisingly sensitive to solar blindness. And Beresheet has suffered a unexpected reset last month, which pushed back a planned engine in a few days.
But Beresheet has managed to solve such problems up to now.
Mike Wall's book on the search for extraterrestrial life, "Over there"(Grand Central Publishing, 2018, illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.
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