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Israel’s first Moon mission blasts off from Florida
WASHINGTON, Feb 22, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – A rocket took off from Cape Canaveral
in Florida on Thursday night carrying Israel’s Beresheet spacecraft, aiming
to make history twice: as the first private-sector landing on the Moon, and
the first from the Jewish state.
The 585-kilogram (1,290-pound) Beresheet, which means “Genesis” in Hebrew,
lifted off at 8:45 pm (0145 GMT Friday) atop a Falcon 9 rocket from the
private US-based SpaceX company of entrepreneur Elon Musk.
Take-off was followed live back in Israel, with Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu watching alongside engineers from the control center of the Israeli
Aerospace Industries (IAI).
The Israeli craft has been placed in Earth orbit, from where it will use
its own engine to undertake a seven-week trip to reach the Moon and touch
down on April 11 in a large plain.
The rocket also contains an Indonesian satellite and a satellite of the US
Air Force Research Laboratory.
The unmanned mission is part of renewed global interest in the Moon,
sometimes called the “eighth continent” of the Earth, and comes 50 years
after American astronauts first walked on the lunar surface.
“This is history in the making – and it’s live! Israel is aiming for the
#moon and you’re all invited to watch,” said a Twitter message from SpaceIL,
the non-profit organization that designed the Israeli craft.
It was backed notably by businessman and philanthropist Morris Kahn, who
financed the development of a craft. “Make us proud,” he said Thursday.
Entrepreneurs, not government space agencies, financed the mission, which
was initially projected at $10 million but eventually grew to $100 million.
Other partners are Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), Israel’s space
agency, and the country’s Ministry of Science and Technology.
So far, only Russia, the United States and China have made the 384,000-
kilometer (239,000-mile) journey and landed spacecraft on the Moon.
China’s Chang’e-4 made the first-ever soft landing on the far side of the
Moon on January 3, after a probe sent by Beijing made a Lunar landing
elsewhere in 2013.
Americans are the only ones to have walked on the lunar surface, but have
not been there since 1972.
For Israel, the landing itself is the main mission, but the spacecraft also
carries a scientific instrument to measure the lunar magnetic field, which
will help understanding of the Moon’s formation.
Technically, it is far from a trivial mission.
After its initial boost from the Falcon 9, the Beresheet’s British engine
will have to make several ignitions to place the spacecraft on the correct
trajectory to the Moon.
When it arrives, its landing gear must cushion the descent onto the lunar
surface to prevent Beresheet from crashing.
– India plans to follow –
Beresheet carries a “time capsule” loaded with digital files containing a
Bible, children’s drawings, Israeli songs, memories of a Holocaust survivor
and the blue-and-white Israeli flag.
At a cost of $100 million, “this is the lowest-budget spacecraft to ever
undertake such a mission. The superpowers who managed to land a spacecraft on
the Moon have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding,”
IAI said in an earlier statement.
“Beresheet is the first spacecraft to land on the Moon as a result of a
private initiative, rather than a government.”
After China earlier this year, and now Israel, India hopes to become the
fifth lunar country in the spring with its Chandrayaan-2 mission. It aims to
put a craft with a rover onto the Moon’s surface to collect data.
Japan plans to send a small lunar lander, called SLIM, to study a volcanic
area around 2020-2021.
As for the Americans, a return to the Moon is now the official policy of
NASA, according to guidelines issued by President Donald Trump in 2017.
“This time, when we go to the Moon, we’re actually going to stay,” NASA
Administrator Jim Bridenstine said last week.
To achieve this, the US space agency is changing its model and no longer
wants to design the missions itself.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which has installed
equipment on Beresheet to upload its signals from the Moon, said last week it
aims to land instruments later this year or next year and that it is inviting
private sector bids to build and launch the US probes.
The US space agency plans to build a small space station, dubbed Gateway,
in the Moon’s orbit by 2026, and envisages a manned mission to Mars in the
following decade.
BSS/AFP/GMR/0900 hrs