Israeli lunar mission
SpaceX lofts first privately funded moon landing attempt
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — An Israeli spacecraft rocketed toward the moon for the country’s first attempted lunar landing, following a launch on Thursday night by SpaceX.
A communications satellite for Indonesia was the main cargo aboard the Falcon 9 rocket, which illuminated the sky as it took flight. But Israel’s privately funded lunar lander — a first not just for Israel but commercial space — generated the buzz.
Israel seeks to become only the fourth country to successfully land on the moon, after the Soviet Union, the United States and China. The spacecraft — called Beresheet, Hebrew for Genesis or “In The Beginning” — will take nearly two months to reach the moon.
“We thought it’s about time for a change, and we want to get little Israel all the way to the moon,” said Yonatan Winetraub, co-founder of Israel’s SpaceIL, a nonprofit organization behind the effort.
The moon, nearly full and glowing brightly, beckoned as it rose in the eastern sky. Within an hour after liftoff, Beresheet was already sending back data and had successfully deployed its landing legs, according to SpaceIL.
“We’ll keep analyzing the data, but bottom line is we entered the very exclusive group of countries that have launched a spacecraft to the moon,” said Yigal Harel, head of SpaceIL’s spacecraft program.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was watching the launch live from the Israeli control center in Yehud, near Tel Aviv.
“This is a big step for Israel, but a giant step for Israeli technology,” he said.
The four-legged Beresheet, barely the size of a washing machine, will circle Earth in ever bigger loops until it’s captured by lunar gravity and goes into orbit around the moon. Touchdown is scheduled for April 11 at the Sea of Serenity.
NASA’s Apollo missions in the 1960s and 1970s took about three days to get astronauts to the moon, but they used monstrous Saturn V rockets. The $100 million Beresheet mission couldn’t afford its own rocket — even a little one — so the organizers opted for a ride share. That makes for a much longer trip; the moon right now is nearly 370,000 kilometers away.
“This is Uber-style space exploration, so we’re riding shotgun on the rocket,” Winetraub explained at a news conference on the eve of launch.
The US Air Force also has a small research spacecraft aboard the rocket, for a one-year mission in orbit around Earth.
The Soviet Union was the first nation to put a spacecraft on the moon, Luna 2, in 1959. NASA followed with the Ranger 4 spacecraft in 1962. Last month, China became the first country to land on the far side of the moon.
Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin quickly offered congratulations following Thursday’s launch. So did NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, who called it “a historic step for all nations and commercial space as we look to extend our collaborations beyond low-Earth orbit and on to the moon”. NASA has a laser reflector aboard Beresheet and is offering its Deep Space Network for communication.