[ad_1]
The hidden face of the moon by Beresheet, April 10, 2019.
(photo credit: BERESHEET)
X
Dear reader,
As you can imagine, more people are reading the Jerusalem Post than ever before.
Nevertheless, traditional economic models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications,
like ours, are forced to look for new ways to continue. Unlike many other media outlets,
we have not set up paywall. We want to keep our journalism open
and accessible and be able to continue to provide you with news
and analysis of the front lines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.
As one of our faithful readers, we ask you to be our partner.
For $ 5 per month, you will have access to the following:
- A user experience almost completely devoid of ads
- Access to our Premium section
- Content of the award-winning Jerusalem Report and our monthly magazine to learn Hebrew – Ivrit
- A brand new electronic paper presenting the daily newspaper as it appears in Israel
Help us grow and continue to tell the story of Israel to the world.
Thank you,
Ronit Hasin-Hochman, CEO, Jerusalem Post Group
Yaakov Katz, Editor-in-Chief
IMPROVE YOUR JPOST EXPERIENCE BY $ 5 PER MONTH
Show me later
According to a preliminary investigation conducted by SpaceIL, a command to correct a malfunction of one of the inertial measurement units (IMU) of the Beresheet spacecraft caused a series of events that cut off his main engine during landing, during landing.
While a full investigation will be completed in the coming weeks, SpaceIL's CEO, Ido Anteby, said Wednesday that IMU's malfunction during the landing maneuver was his first failure at the time. the seven-week mission to the Moon.
An event chain caused by a command sent from the SpaceIL control room has shut down the main engine of the spacecraft and prevented its proper activation, said Anteby, making a crash on the Moon inevitable.
The malfunction came just minutes before Beresheet, developed by SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), completed a landmark landing – a feat to which only the United States, Russia (then the USSR) and China – had resulted – after an epic 6.5 million km. trip since it took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida aboard a SpaceX rocket on 22 February.
"There has not been any such incident since the beginning of the mission," Anteby told reporters. "After that, an activation command was sent to [the IMU], causing a chain of events in which the main machine stopped and could not return to continuous operation. "
While the spacecraft attempted to restart its engine several times, these attempts were unsuccessful.
"Immediately after the incident, we began our investigation, which is part of our culture of learning, making conclusions and transparency," said Anteby.
"We have completed the first stage of the investigation, which focuses solely on understanding the facts and the sequence of events, and we have tried to understand what happened with the help of the telemetry of the probe. "
According to Anteby, the engineers will not know if anything could have been done differently and if the team is ready to deal with such a malfunction, said Anteby. All agreements, he added, will contribute to the success of a future mission.
"I am proud of the SpaceIL engineers for their outstanding work and dedication," said SpaceIL President Morris Kahn.
"Such cases are an integral part of a complex and innovative project.What is important now is to draw the best possible lessons from our mistakes and continue bravely." That's the message that we wish to transmit to the Israeli people and to the whole world people.This is the spirit of the Beresheet project. "
Kahn, the main donor behind the project, has already held several meetings with the team behind the spacecraft to schedule Beresheet 2, a second mission that will land on the Moon.
The meetings, said SpaceIL, were devoted to defining the objectives of the future mission, completing the ongoing investigation into the Beresheet crash, defining a budget, and recruiting resources and resources. staff. SpaceIL hopes to have completed the second mission two years ago, the organization said.
The initial mission budget was about 350 million NIS ($ 98 million), almost entirely financed by private donors and costing a fraction of the missions sponsored by the governments of the three countries that have successfully reached the moon. .
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $ 5 and enhance your experience with an ad-free website and exclusive content. Click here >>
[ad_2]
Source link