U.S. is not the only nation with lunar ambitions

When the unmanned Beresheet spacecraft crash-landed on the moon in April, Israel joined a small number of nations that have managed to send vehicles to the lunar surface.

Despite the failure, that elite group, which also includes the U.S., India, China, the Soviet Union and Japan, has been helped by updated technology that has changed space exploration, at least for countries that can afford it.

“At this point, the technology to build hardware that can travel to the moon is pretty commonly available,” said Ray Lugo, director of the Florida Space Institute at the University Central Florida. “The hard part is the analysis that determines where on the moon you can safely land.”

As NASA marks 50 years since the Apollo 11 moon landing, other nations have sent unmanned craft to the moon and are planning other missions. China first landed on the moon in December 2013 with its Chang’e 3 rover. Japan has had two probes fly near the moon and then deliberately crash on its surface.

India’s lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1 helped discover evidence of water molecules on the moon. That contribution serves as an example of how space exploration benefits from having as many countries involved as possible, said Bobby Braun, dean of the Center for Astrodynamics Research at the University of Colorado.

“It’s not a Space Race like the Cold War,” he said. “It’s a competition, in a sense, but it’s more of a friendly one.”

ARIEL SCHALIT / AP People in Netanya, Israel, watch a live broadcast of the SpaceIL spacecraft as it lost contact with Earth before it could reach the moon.