{"id":13252,"date":"2019-04-04T21:32:49","date_gmt":"2019-04-04T13:32:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/israels-beresheet-lander-brakes-into-lunar-orbit\/"},"modified":"2019-04-04T21:32:49","modified_gmt":"2019-04-04T13:32:49","slug":"israels-beresheet-lander-brakes-into-lunar-orbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/israels-beresheet-lander-brakes-into-lunar-orbit\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s Beresheet lander brakes into lunar orbit"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Beresheet spacecraft\u2019s six-minute deceleration burn Thursday steered the probe into orbit around the moon. Credit: SpaceIL<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Six weeks after launching from Cape Canaveral, an Israeli-built probe funded through private donations arrived in orbit around the moon Thursday, setting the stage for the mission\u2019s final descent to the lunar surface April 11.<\/p>\n

Engineers at the Beresheet mission control center in Israel confirmed the successful maneuver after telemetry radioed from the spacecraft showed it fired its main engine for approximately six minutes, slowing its speed enough to allow the moon\u2019s gravity to capture the probe in an elongated lunar orbit.<\/p>\n

The Beresheet spacecraft ignited its main engine at 1418 GMT (10:18 a.m. EDT) Thursday for the make-or-break maneuver to steer into orbit around the moon. If the probe misfired, Israeli officials said the spacecraft would have continued on into deep space, bringing the mission to an end.<\/p>\n

Mission controllers, managers and VIPs watched as data relayed from the spacecraft to the Israeli control center showed the engine burning normally. A display showing the total velocity change, or delta-V, from the engine firing counted upward until it reached 323.663 meters per second (724 mph).<\/p>\n

The engine burn was designed to slow the probe\u2019s velocity by 324 meters per second, and officials celebrated the result, which made Israel the seventh country or international organization to place a spacecraft in orbit around the moon \u2014 after Russia, the United States, Japan, the European Space Agency, China and India.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter six weeks in space, we have succeeded in overcoming another critical stage by entering the moon\u2019s gravity,\u201d said Ido Anteby, CEO of SpaceIL, a non-profit organization founded in 2011 to manage Beresheet\u2019s development. \u201cThis is another significant achievement our engineering team achieved while demonstrating determination and creativity in finding solutions to unexpected challenges. We still have a long way until the lunar landing, but I\u2018m convinced our team will complete the mission to land the first Israeli spacecraft on the moon, making us all proud.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beresheet was expected to enter an elliptical, or oval-shaped, orbit ranging between 310 miles (500 kilometers) and 6,200 miles (10,000 kilometers) above the moon\u2019s surface. Several more engine firings during the next week will place Beresheet in a circular 124-mile-high (200-kilometer) orbit in preparation for landing.<\/p>\n

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A display at the Beresheet mission control center in Israel displayed the total velocity change, or delta-V, of 323.663 meters per second, or 724 mph, imparted during Thursday\u2019s lunar capture burn. Credit: SpaceIL<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Beresheet\u2019s lunar capture maneuver Thursday was also historic for the commercial space industry. The mission was designed, built and launched for around $100 million, and almost all of the funding came from private donors and corporate investments.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve done it! First privately funded spacecraft in lunar orbit,\u201d tweeted Yoav Landsman, Beresheet\u2019s deputy mission director at SpaceIL. \u201cFeels like the dawn of a new era of commercial space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morris Kahn, a South African-born Israeli billionaire, contributed $40 million of his fortune to the project. Kahn, 89, was at Beresheet\u2019s control center in Israel for Thursday\u2019s critical maneuver.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had support from all over the world,\u201d Kahn said Thursday. \u201cNASA has recognized what we\u2019re doing, and the world has recognized what we\u2019re doing, and what we\u2019re doing is we\u2019re pioneering something in space. We\u2019re showing that a small country can actually do an amazing job.\u201d<\/p>\n

But more perils remain ahead for Beresheet. Its mission will culminate with a landing April 11 \u2014 next Thursday \u2014 in the Mare Serenitatis, or Sea of Serenity, region on the upper right part of the moon as viewed from Earth.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter a challenging journey, we made tonight another Israeli record and became the seventh nation to orbit the moon,\u201d said Nimrod Sheffer, CEO of Israel Aerospace Industries, Beresheet\u2019s prime contractor. \u201cEven before Beresheet was launched, it already was a national success story that shows our groundbreaking technological capabilities. Tonight, we again reach new heights. In the coming week, our talented engineering team will work 24\/7 to bring us to an historic event on April 11.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beresheet launched Feb. 21 from Cape Canaveral aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, riding piggyback with a larger Indonesian communications satellite and an experimental U.S. Air Force spacecraft.<\/p>\n

The Falcon 9\u2019s upper stage released Beresheet in an elliptical orbit ranging as high as 43,000 miles (69,000 kilometers) in altitude. After separation, the spacecraft deployed its four landing legs. With the lander gear extended, Beresheet has a diameter of around 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) and measures 4.9 feet (1.5 meters) tall, about the size of a golf cart.<\/p>\n

A series of main engine burns nudged Beresheet into longer orbits that took the spacecraft farther from Earth. Beresheet traveled more than 3.4 million miles \u2014 about 5.5 million kilometers \u2014 between its departure from Cape Canaveral and arrival in lunar orbit.<\/p>\n

Ground controllers identified an issue with the spacecraft\u2019s star tracker cameras shortly after launch. The cameras are used to locate the positions of stars in the sky, helping determine Beresheet\u2019s orientation in space. SpaceIL says the star trackers are too sensitive to blinding by bright sunlight.<\/p>\n

Beresheet also missed one of its orbit-raising engine burns in late February due to a computer reset, but engineers kept mission on schedule for its arrival at the moon.<\/p>\n

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Ground controllers work inside the Beresheet mission control center in Israel. Credit: SpaceIL<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With Beresheet\u2019s landing \u2014 the spacecraft\u2019s most challenging task \u2014 still ahead, SpaceIL officials are still cautious about the the mission\u2019s chances of a safe touchdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we reach the right point we\u2019ll be just giving the spacecraft the command to start the landing phase,\u201d said Yariv Bash, a co-founder of SpaceIL. \u201cFrom that moment on, the spacecraft will automatically start landing on its own, all the way to the surface of the moon.<\/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 Bash said Tuesday. \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

Three young Israeli engineers and entrepreneurs established SpaceIL in 2011 in pursuit of 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, the mission\u2019s largest single financial contributor, serves as SpaceIL\u2019s president. Other donors include 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 entire mission cost significantly less than any government-backed lunar lander. Still, raising $100 million from private donors proved a challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never in my wildest dreams thought that we would get to something like $100 million, but once we got going, we were actually in,\u201d Kahn said Tuesday. \u201cIt was a challenge, and actually, I love a challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

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SpaceIL co-founders Kfir Damari, Yonatan Winetraub and Yariv Bash insert a time capsule on the Beresheet spacecraft. The time capsule includes three discs with digital files that will remain on the moon with the spacecraft. The discs include details on the spacecraft and the crew that built it, and national and cultural symbols, such as the Israeli flag, the Israeli national anthem, and the Bible. Credit: SpaceIL<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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

\u201cThough the Google Lunar X Prize went unclaimed, we are thrilled to have stimulated a diversity of teams from around the world to pursue their ambitious lunar missions, and we are proud to be able to recognize SpaceIL\u2019s accomplishment with this Moonshot Award,\u201d said Anousheh Ansari, chief executive officer of the X Prize Foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpaceIL\u2019s mission represents the democratization of space exploration,\u201d said Peter Diamandis, founder and executive chairman of the X Prize Foundation. \u201cWe are optimistic about seeing this first domino fall, setting off a chain reaction of increasingly affordable and repeatable commercial missions to the moon and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

A successful landing will not only mark a first for the private space industry, but will also thrust Israel into an exclusive group of nations that have put a spacecraft on the moon. So far, the United States, Russia and China have successfully landed probes on the moon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a vision to show off Israel\u2019s best qualities to the entire world,\u201d said Sylvan Adams, a Canadian-Israeli businessman who helped fund the mission, in a press conference between Beresheet\u2019s launch. \u201cTiny Israel, tiny, tiny Israel, is about to become the fourth nation to land on the moon. And this is a remarkable thing, because we continue to demonstrate our ability to punch far, far, far above our weight, and to show off our skills, our innovation, our creativity in tackling any difficult problem that could possibly exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of the project\u2019s limited budget \u2014 a fraction of the cost of government-funded lunar landers \u2014 the Israeli team had to adapt technology designed for other purposes to the moon mission. For example, the main thruster on the lander is a modified engine typically used to adjust the orbits of large communications satellites.<\/p>\n

During the landing sequence, the engine will be switched on and off to control the lander\u2019s descent rate. It can\u2019t be throttled.<\/p>\n

Most of the systems on the spacecraft were built without a backup to control costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur spacecraft has very low redundancy,\u201d Anteby said Tuesday. \u201cOne sensor that fails could fail the whole mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

After landing, Beresheet will collect data on the magnetic field at the landing site. NASA also provided a laser reflector on the spacecraft, which scientists will use to determine the exact distance to the moon, and to pinpoint the lander\u2019s location. The U.S. space agency is also providing communications and tracking support to the mission.<\/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

The Israeli-built lander is designed to function at least two days on the moon, enough time to beam back basic scientific data and a series of panoramic images, plus a selfie. The laser reflector is a passive payload, and will be useful long after the spacecraft stops operating.<\/p>\n

Beresheet also aims to deliver a time capsule to the moon with the Israeli flag, and digital copies of the Israeli national anthem, the Bible, and other national and cultural artifacts.<\/p>\n

Opher Doron, general manager of IAI\u2019s space division, said he originally did foresee any business applications for the custom-designed lander design after the Beresheet mission. But that is changing as NASA and the European Space Agency look at purchasing commercial rides to the moon for science experiments, and eventually people.<\/p>\n

IAI and OHB, a German aerospace company, signed an agreement in January that could build on the Beresheet mission by constructing future commercial landers to ferry scientific instruments and other payloads to the moon\u2019s surface for ESA.<\/p>\n

According to Doron, IAI is also in discussions with U.S. companies to use Israeli technology developed for the Beresheet project on commercial lunar landers for NASA\u2019s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. NASA selected nine companies last year to be eligible to compete for contracts to transport science and tech demo payloads to the lunar surface.<\/p>\n

SpaceIL and IAI were not among the winners, but Israeli engineers could partner with U.S. firms to meet NASA\u2019s requirements.<\/p>\n

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

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

The Beresheet spacecraft\u2019s six-minute deceleration burn Thursday steered the probe into orbit around the moon. Credit: SpaceIL Six weeks after launching from Cape Canaveral, an Israeli-built probe funded through private donations arrived in orbit around the moon Thursday, setting the stage for the mission\u2019s final descent to the lunar surface April 11. Engineers at the […]<\/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-13252","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\/13252"}],"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=13252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}