The Borneo Post

Israel plans first lunar space mission

-

YEHUD, Israel: An Israeli organisati­on announced plans yesterday to launch the country’s first spacecraft to the moon in December, with hopes of burnishing Israel’s reputation as a small nation with otherworld­ly high-tech ambitions.

The unmanned spacecraft, shaped like a pod and weighing some 585 kilogramme­s at launch, will land on the moon on Feb 13, 2019 if all goes according to plan, organisers SpaceIL told journalist­s.

It will be launched via a rocket from American entreprene­ur Elon Musk’s SpaceX firm and its mission will include research on the moon’s magnetic field.

Its first task however will be to plant an Israeli flag on the moon, organisers said.The project began as part of the Google Lunar XPrize, which offered US$ 30 million ( 25 million euros) in prizes to encourage scientists and entreprene­urs to come up with relatively low-cost moon missions.

An Israeli team that later became known as SpaceIL decided to join the fray and eventually partnered with state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries. — AFP

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Malaysia