Israeli Moon takes off with a successful launch

Israel's first lunar spacecraft successfully took off on Friday morning, embarking on a seven-week trip to land on the moon. If the privately financed Beresheet project succeeds, Israel will be only the fourth country to place a spacecraft on the moon.

Beresheet took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 3:45 am (Israel time) (8:45 pm, Thursday, Eastern Time) to take place in one of Elon Musk's SpaceX commercial space launches.

The flight started smoothly and the first phase of the fire ended without a hitch less than three minutes after take-off. At 4:23 am, 38 minutes after take-off, Beresheet detached from the Falcon 9 rocket during the first test of its ability to operate autonomously.

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Hundreds of people gathered at Israel Aerospace Industries in Yehud to watch a live report of the launch from Florida. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was also present, blessed this initiative, calling it a "big step for Israel and a breakthrough for Israeli technology."

The four-legged Beresheet, which is barely the size of a washing machine, will surround the Earth with ever larger loops, until captured by lunar gravity and orbits the moon. . The landing would be on April 11 at the sea of ​​serenity.

Lior Ezrai will be the first spaceship controller to have full control of Beresheet and will be responsible for initiating the onboard engines to facilitate passage of the spacecraft into the right elliptical.

"It's really exciting," Ezrai said moments before returning to the command center before launch. "I've been a little stressed out by the launch, but it will be really exciting to be the first to be able to control it and see that all the systems are working."

"We had a successful launch, were injected into a good orbit, well separated and had good communications," said Dr. Ofer Doron, general manager of the Space Division at Israel Aerospace Industries.

There is a small problem with one of the star followers, which helps the spaceship to orientate itself by using the position of the stars, but Mr. Doron explained that there was a problem. Other means by which the spacecraft could move on the right path.

The $ 100 million satellite (NIS 370 million) is a joint venture between SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries, which is funded almost entirely by private donations from well-known Jewish philanthropists, including South African billionaire Morris Kahn. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, Lynn Schusterman, and others.

Previously, Russia (as a Soviet Union) and the United States landed on the moon. China landed an unmanned spaceship on the other side of the moon in 2013.

SpaceIL was the only Israeli competitor in the Google LunarX PRIZE international contest, which offered participants a chance to win $ 20 million by landing an unmanned spaceship on the moon. Google officially ended the contest on March 31, 2018 without a winner. But the group behind SpaceIL decided to continue its mission by appealing to donors to help finance the operation in the open.

The Beresheet probe will measure the magnetic fields on the moon, data that will be transmitted to the Weizmann Institute to help scientists understand how the moon formed billions of years ago. Beresheet will send information about two to three days before the sun's rays melt parts of the communication system, thus ending the mission.

The Beresheet team hopes that the excitement of Israel's first lunar landing will have an "Apollo effect" reminiscent of the 1960s, when space travel prompted hundreds of thousands of American children to study science and science. aerospace engineering.

The public voted on the name Beresheet, which is the Hebrew word for the book of Genesis and which also means "At the beginning". The spaceship carries a Hebrew Bible carrying nanotechnology on a small metal circle the size of a 5 NIS coin, and a time capsule with the Israel Independence Statement and the National Anthem , memories of a Holocaust survivor, children's drawings of space and moon, the traveler's prayer and a note from the late President Shimon Peres.

The time capsule also contains a photo of Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, who died aboard the space shuttle Columbia in 2003, as well as a lunar library containing 30 million pages on a disc of the American Arch Mission base. Foundation.

Ramon's widow, Rona, was a big supporter of Beresheet; she died of cancer in December.

The Beresheet Command Center in Yehud, about 15 km southeast of Tel Aviv, is the location of the probe's construction and testing, including 10-day periods in a high vacuum alternately blowing the probe. with extreme heat and cold to withstand large temperature fluctuations in space.

Space travel is in line with Uber and the sharing economy, with international space agencies seeking to reduce costs by using "shared paths" to sneak into space in existing commercial launches.

After take-off, SpaceX recovered the first rappel stage, which had flown twice last year. The propeller landed smoothly on an offshore offshore platform after the hottest return so far, according to SpaceX founder and CEO Musk. Sparks of burning metal were visible in the landing video.

The Falcon 9 rocket that brought Beresheet into space also deployed a large satellite of geo-communication and other equipment for the US Air Force. While Musk has cornered the market during commercial rocket launches, SpaceIL and IAI are hoping to find a niche in inexpensive landings on the moon. For example, space agencies or, one day, individuals or organizations could send cameras and research material to the moon. purposes.

The agencies contributed to this report.