Israel’s first lunar lander, the probe known as the Beresheet (meaning genesis or beginning, in Hebrew), appears to have crashed on the moon.
The small spacecraft ( about 600 kilograms in weight including fuel and 1.5 meters tall ), launched by the Israeli non-profit organization SpaceIL , was scheduled to land on the lunar surface on April 11. Everything seemed to be going well, however, in the last minutes of its descent, the ship’s engine stopped. Mission control reestablished contact with Beresheet in order to reactivate the engine quickly, but shortly thereafter communication with the lander was cut off. The ship had crashed before landing in the Moon’s Sea of Serenity.
Specifically, mission control lost contact with the machine when it was just 149 meters from the surface.
“ # Beresheet Main Engine Fails! The ship was unable to land. It seems that it has crashed on the surface of the moon! ”, Explained in a tweet the Israel Space Agency.
“We didn’t make it, but we’ve tried,” said SpaceIL president Morris Kahn. “I think we can be proud .”
Failed landing
Had Beresheet safely reached the moon, Israel would have become the fourth country, after the United States, the former Soviet Union and China, to make a lunar landing. However, it is not all bad news, as Israel already has the seventh place to send a spacecraft into orbit around the Moon.
The unmanned ship contained a capsule in which digital files had been inserted with a Torah ( Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible), drawings made by Israeli schoolchildren, a copy of the national anthem and an Israeli flag, as well as literature, photos and popular songs of the country.
Launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard an Elon Musk SpaceX rocket in February, Beresheet orbited the Earth until meeting the Moon in early April. After several lunar orbits, the spacecraft was aiming to land in the Sea of Serenity, a volcanic plain on the near side of our satellite, near where the Apollo 17 astronauts placed an American flag in 1972. Recall that La NASA has left six badges on the Moon that commemorate the feat of having conquered it. However, extreme ultraviolet radiation and high temperature changes have caused certain changes, such as the bleaching of the emblematic colors of the flags.
Beresheet carried a wide range of scientific instruments, including several cameras and a device for measuring magnetic fields. But science was only SpaceIL’s No. 2 priority for this little spacecraft. Beresheet’s main goal was to achieve a successful landing that would help create an “Apollo Effect” in Israel – inspire Israeli students to pursue science and engineering. Try to get Israel to join the space race through the desire of each and every one of its citizens. The mission even inspired a children’s book, “The Little Spaceship.”
This is not the end of an Israeli mission to the Moon, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “If you are unsuccessful at first, try again.”
Reference: Space.com / SpaceIL
