Israel will become the fourth country to reach the moon

In February 2019, this country will send an unmanned spaceship to the list of countries that have landed: the Soviet Union, the United States and China.

In February 2019, an unmanned spaceship will place Israel on the list of countries landing a device on the Moon . This is the first private spacecraft, and the smallest, sent to the lunar surface: it is only 2 meters in diameter and about half a meter high and weighs 600 kilograms on Earth, it will weigh 180 kilograms on the moon, once you have consumed the fuel. (Read the lies about the so-called "eclipse of the century" circulating through the networks)

The spacecraft was developed by the firm SpaceIL and will be launched from the United States in a Falcon orbital launcher 9 of SpaceX during the month of December. The moon landing is scheduled for February 13, 2019. (Read the largest Sahara dust invasion in the Atlantic Ocean in 15 years)

If the mission is successfully completed, Israel would the fourth country to achieve this goal since 1966 achievement, joining the Soviet Union, the United States and China . The United States remains the only country to carry out a mission on the moon, with six successful lunar landings from the Apollo mission from 1969 to 1972.

The SpaceIL spacecraft also has a scientific mission: to decipher the magnetic mysteries of the rocks polka dots The research, conducted in cooperation with scientists from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, will use a magnetometer in the spacecraft to try to understand how the moon's rocks received their magnetism, reports Haaretz.

After its launch, the spacecraft SpaceIL will be transported into a terrestrial orbit about 60,000 kilometers from the Earth's surface. From there, it will gradually go to the moon from an elliptical orbit around the Earth. This will make travel time much longer than in past missions.

Since the Apollo missions, the last carried out 45 years ago, the man has not returned to the moon. From 1969 to 1972, astronauts landed six times to collect samples and information on the constitution of our natural satellite. The main obstacles to man's return to the moon are related to the cost of missions and the development of sufficiently large and powerful rockets to transfer the landing and command modules to the lunar orbit. . However, and although he has decreed a budget cut to the US space agency, President Donald Trump has signed a directive on space policy that provides for the return of US astronauts and the preparation of future Martian manned missions. . To this end, NASA will continue to work with space contractors, as it has already done with Boeing, SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, according to a press release from the agency.

This article was published in N + 1, Science What Adds