{"id":13241,"date":"2019-04-11T23:27:04","date_gmt":"2019-04-11T15:27:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/israeli-probe-crashes-in-attempt-to-become-first-privately-funded-moon-lander\/"},"modified":"2019-04-11T23:27:04","modified_gmt":"2019-04-11T15:27:04","slug":"israeli-probe-crashes-in-attempt-to-become-first-privately-funded-moon-lander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/israeli-probe-crashes-in-attempt-to-become-first-privately-funded-moon-lander\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli probe crashes in attempt to become first privately-funded moon lander"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
This image was taken by Beresheet at an altitude of 13.7 miles (22 kilometers) above the moon and relayed to mission controllers through NASA\u2019s Deep Space Network. Credit: SpaceIL<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An Israeli-built spacecraft seeking to become the first privately-developed probe to land on the moon crashed on descent Thursday, but the mission was widely lauded as a breakthrough for the commercial space industry, and Israeli prime minster Benjamin Netanyahu said the country would try again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a failure of the spacecraft,\u201d said Opher Doron, general manager of the space division at Israel Aerospace Industries, which built the Beresheet moon lander. \u201cWe unfortunately have not managed to land successfully.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are the seventh country to orbit the moon, and the fourth to reach the moon\u2019s surface, and it\u2019s a tremendous achievement up to now,\u201d Doron said.<\/p>\n

Live telemetry from the Beresheet spacecraft, relayed to mission control in Yehud, Israel, through a NASA tracking antenna in Spain, indicated the lander ran into trouble around 1919 GMT (3:19 p.m. EDT), six minutes before its scheduled landing time, at an altitude of around 43,800 feet (13,350 meters).<\/p>\n

Doron provided updates on the progress of Beresheet\u2019s descent. Data from the spacecraft \u2014 about the size of a golf cart \u2014 indicated a problem in one of its inertial measurement units, a key part of the probe\u2019s guidance system, Doron said.<\/p>\n

Controllers briefly lost the signal from Beresheet, and when they regained telemetry, the data indicated Beresheet was rapidly falling toward the moon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe seem to have a problem with our main engine,\u201d Doron said. \u201cWe are resetting the spacecraft to try to enable the engine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moments later, a data display in mission control suggested Beresheet had crashed on the lunar surface at high speed at roughly 1923 GMT (3:23 p.m. EDT).<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, we didn\u2019t make it, but we definitely tried, and I think that the achievement of getting to where we got is really tremendous,\u201d said Morris Kahn, the president of SpaceIL who donated some $40 million of his fortune to the privately-funded lunar lander program. \u201cI think we can be proud.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu greeted the Beresheet control team shortly before the lunar landing attempt Thursday. Credit: SpaceIL<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIf at first you don\u2019t succeed, you try again,\u201d said Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who observed the landing attempt from the control center.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu said Israel could try to another moon landing mission in two years.<\/p>\n

Beresheet began its descent at an altitude of about 15 miles (25 kilometers), roughly 500 miles (800 kilometers) from its targeted landing site, a few hundred kilometers from the location where the Apollo 15 astronauts landed in 1971.<\/p>\n

The lander first switched on its laser landing sensors, which were designed to feed data about the craft\u2019s altitude and descent rate to a guidance computer responsible for commanding firings of Beresheet\u2019s main engine to control its speed.<\/p>\n

Then Beresheet began pulsing its eight small control thrusters to get into the correct orientation to slow its speed and fall toward the moon, with its main engine facing in the direction of travel parallel to the lunar surface.<\/p>\n

Beresheet\u2019s main engine was a 100-pound-thrust (400-newton) LEROS 2b engine built by Nammo, formerly Moog, in the United Kingdom. The hydrazine-fueled engine was a modified version of a thruster typically used by large communications satellites.<\/p>\n

But the engine had never been used for a landing on another planetary body, and engineers updated the engine\u2019s design to allow for multiple \u201chot restarts,\u201d when the lander will fire the engine in quick bursts to control its descent rate. The engine couldn\u2019t be throttled to adjust Beresheet\u2019s speed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hot restarts represented a particular challenge as it effectively puts the engine into its most stressful temperature environment,\u201d said Robert Westcott, one of Nammo\u2019s lead propulsion engineers on the Beresheet project, before Thursday\u2019s landing attempt. \u201cTo test this we performed a series of hotfire trials together with SpaceIL, where we stopped and started the engine repeatedly, which confirmed that it is able to operate in this highly demanding firing mode.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other changes to the engine included shortening its nozzle to ensure it could fit into the Beresheet spacecraft and keep the thruster from hitting the moon\u2019s surface. Nammo also made the engine more powerful for Beresheet by increasing its thrust.<\/p>\n

Data transmitted back to Earth from the spacecraft showed Beresheet started slowing its speed above the moon from roughly 3,800 mph (1.7 kilometers per second) around 1911 GMT (3:11 p.m. EDT).<\/p>\n

If the spacecraft performed as expected, Beresheet should have reached a horizontal velocity of zero at an altitude of about 3,300 feet (1 kilometer). Beresheet would have then pitched over and started a vertical descent.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoughly 15 feet (5 meters) or so above the surface of the moon, the velocity will go to zero, and then we\u2019ll just shut off the motors and the spacecraft will perform a free fall all the way to the surface of the moon,\u201d said Yariv Bash, a SpaceIL co-founder, last week. \u201cThe legs of the spacecraft were designed to sustain that fall, and hopefully once we are on the moon we\u2019ll be able to send back images and videos to Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

After settling on the surface on its four landing legs, Beresheet was to take a series of pictures, including images for a panorama to show the probe\u2019s surroundings. The lander was also be programmed to record a series of images during the landing sequence to create a video of the descent.<\/p>\n

Beresheet\u2019s sole active science instrument was a magnetometer developed by the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel to measure the magnetism of lunar rocks.<\/p>\n

The German space agency \u2014 DLR \u2014 also helped the SpaceIL team with drop testing to simulate the conditions the spacecraft will encounter at the moment of landing.<\/p>\n

Despite landing failure, officials laud Beresheet\u2019s groundbreaking mission<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Beresheet, which means \u201cgenesis\u201d or \u201cin the beginning\u201d in Hebrew, was aiming to become the first privately-funded spacecraft to land on another planetary body. The mission was developed for around $100 million by SpaceIL, a non-profit organization founded in 2011 by three young Israeli engineers.<\/p>\n

Despite the probe\u2019s failure, officials from NASA and the commercial space industry congratulated the Beresheet team for their achievement in getting the spacecraft so close to landing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile NASA regrets the end of the SpaceIL mission without a successful lunar landing of the Beresheet lander, we congratulate SpaceIL, the Israel Aerospace Industries and the state of Israel on the incredible accomplishment of sending the first privately funded mission into lunar orbit,\u201d NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery attempt to reach new milestones holds opportunities for us to learn, adjust and progress,\u201d Bridenstine said. \u201cI have no doubt that Israel and SpaceIL will continue to explore and I look forward to celebrating their future achievements.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thomas Zurbuchen, head of NASA\u2019s science mission directorate, tweeted: \u201cSpace is hard, but worth the risks. If we succeeded every time, there would be no reward. It\u2019s when we keep trying that we inspire others and achieve greatness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zurbuchen said he will travel to Israel later this year for discussions on future cooperation on lunar missions. NASA provided a laser retroreflector and communications and tracking support for the Beresheet mission.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Artist\u2019s concept of the Beresheet lander during its final descent to the moon. Credit: SpaceIL<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI want to thank @<\/s>TeamSpaceIL<\/b> for doing this landing with millions watching around the world, despite knowing the risks,\u201d Zurbuchen tweeted. \u201cWe do the same because we believe in the value of worldwide exploration and inspiration. We encourage all international and commercial explorers to do the same!\u201d<\/p>\n

SpaceIL was founded to pursue the Google Lunar X Prize, which promised $20 million grand prize for the first team to land a privately-funded spacecraft on the moon, return high-definition imagery, and demonstrate mobility on the lunar surface.<\/p>\n

The Google Lunar X Prize contest ended last year without a winner, but Beresheet\u2019s backers kept the mission alive.<\/p>\n

Kahn, a South African-born Israeli businessman, was the mission\u2019s largest single contributor. Other donors included Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, a casino and resort magnate who lives in Las Vegas. IAI, the lander\u2019s prime contractor, also invested some of its own internal research and development money into the program.<\/p>\n

The Israeli Space Agency awarded SpaceIL around $2 million, the program\u2019s only government funding.<\/p>\n

The X Prize Foundation, which organized the original Google Lunar X Prize competition, announced March 28 that it would offer a $1 million \u201cMoonshot Award\u201d to SpaceIL if the Beresheet mission successfully landed on the moon.<\/p>\n

Peter Diamandis, founder and executive chairman of the X Prize Foundation, announced Thursday that SpaceIL will get the $1 million Moonshot Award anyway. He tweeted that the award will help SpaceIL \u201ccontinue their work and pursue Beresheet 2.0.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey managed to touch the surface of the moon, and that\u2019s what we were looking for for our Moonshot Award,\u201d said Anousheh Ansari, CEO of the X Prize Foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cBesides touching the surface of the moon, they touched the lives and the hearts of an entire nation, the entire world,\u201d Diamandis said. \u201cThese prizes are not easy, and frankly, space is not easy, not yet,\u201d Diamandis said.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This image was taken by Beresheet at an altitude of 13.7 miles (22 kilometers) above the moon and relayed to mission controllers through NASA\u2019s Deep Space Network. Credit: SpaceIL An Israeli-built spacecraft seeking to become the first privately-developed probe to land on the moon crashed on descent Thursday, but the mission was widely lauded as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2274,291,2670,1672,1673,625,1561,1563],"class_list":["post-13241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-beresheet","tag-commercial-space","tag-google-lunar-x-prize","tag-israel","tag-israel-aerospace-industries","tag-moon","tag-planetary-science","tag-solar-system"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}