Completion of the last equipment for the shipment of an Israeli spacecraft on the moon

04:36 18.12.2018(Updated 04:44 to 18.12.2018) Copy link

Israeli engineers completed Monday the treatment of a spacecraft they seek to send to the moon in the first months of 2019.

The digital capsule will be the first such mission since 2013 and, if successful, will make Israel the fourth country to reach the moon in an unmanned vehicle.

Since 1966, the United States and the Soviet Union have sent about 12 vehicles to the moon, and China was the last to do so in 2013.

"The construction of the vehicle is almost complete and has been tested … and we will be ready to go to Cape Canaveral, Florida, in a few weeks," said Eido Entebbe, General Manager of the Space Agency Purpose non-profit SPACE IL.

Israel has already launched industrial satellites, but this time it will launch the first long-range vehicle of its kind.

The vehicle, called Berichit (Genesis Hebrew), takes the form of a round table with four feet of carbon fiber 1.5 meters long, weighing about two-thirds of that weight.

The launch is scheduled to take off from Florida on a rocket for the SpaceX 9 Falcon 9 in the coming months after the postponement of the scheduled date for the month of December.

The only cylindrical time capsule is adaptable to almost as large space conditions as a hard drive and carries digital files with child drawings, images and information about Israeli culture and culture. History of humanity.

"The capsule will stay on the moon and stay in its environment, maybe in 20 years, someone will drive a spacecraft to make it," Entebbe said.

Berichit also carries a device to measure the magnetic field on the moon.

At an altitude of 60,000 km above the surface of the Earth, the vehicle will be separated from the rocket. It will initially orbit the Earth, then the Moon, two months later. After that, the vehicle will slow down and perform a silent descent that will not cause any damage.