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ORLANDO – An Israeli lunar lander financed by private funds made a maneuver on February 28 to climb into orbit after a computer problem had postponed a previous maneuver.
Lander Beresheet fired its main propeller for about four minutes at 2:30 pm. Is. The maneuver brought the peak of the Space Shuttle's orbit around the Earth from 69,400 to 131,000 km.
"The maneuver went as planned. All shuttle systems have worked properly, "said Ido Anteby, SpaceIL's general manager, after the maneuver in an audio statement provided by SpaceIL.
Beresheet was placed in its supersynchronous transfer orbit on February 21, as a secondary payload on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Florida. The spacecraft made its first post-launch maneuver on February 24 to carry the perigee from its orbit 600 kilometers away.
The spacecraft originally had to perform the maneuver to lift its climax on February 25, but SpaceIL said that the on-board computers on Beresheet had undergone an unexpected reset, canceling the maneuver.
"We have been able to solve many of the problems we have experienced in recent days," said Opher Doron, general manager of Israel Aerospace Industries' (IAI) space division, which built the lander. "It is quite normal for a new spaceship to experience start-up problems in its early days, and we have all overcome them."
Doron described the computer problem as "small problems that were solved by commands in the software" rather than a hardware problem. "It's nothing that is very serious. It just takes time to iron them.
Additional maneuvers are planned in the coming weeks to strengthen the spacecraft's orbit until it arrives near the moon in early April. Beresheet will then orbit the moon before an attempt to land on April 11. Anteby said the next maneuver would take place in about a week.
SpaceIL originally designed this LG for the Google Lunar X Prize, which for a decade offered a first prize of $ 20 million to the first privately funded team to place a spacecraft on the moon, browse at least 500 meters from its surface and return a video and other data. Google ended the award sponsorship early in 2018 without a winner.
SpaceIL has decided to continue the development of its lander, funded largely by philanthropy, to continue its mission of encouraging Israeli children to pursue careers in science and engineering. Meanwhile, IAI plans to offer the LG to other customers and announced in January an agreement with the German company OHB to pursue opportunities with the European Space Agency.
Doron said that although Beresheet behaves well, he would not be surprised if there were any other technical problems in the coming weeks. "There are many things that can not be tested on Earth," he said. "There will probably be other surprises along the way and we hope to be able to manage them as well."
"We are pretty happy" with the spacecraft in general, he noted. "The moon seems to be at hand."
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