{"id":13284,"date":"2019-03-19T23:39:27","date_gmt":"2019-03-19T15:39:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/beresheet-lander-on-course-for-the-moon\/"},"modified":"2019-03-19T23:39:27","modified_gmt":"2019-03-19T15:39:27","slug":"beresheet-lander-on-course-for-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/beresheet-lander-on-course-for-the-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"Beresheet lander on course for the moon"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
A camera on-board the Beresheet lander captured this view of Earth from a distance of more than 23,000 miles (37,000 kilometers). Credit: SpaceIL<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The privately-funded Israeli Bersesheet lander is on course to enter orbit around the moon April 4 after another boost from its main engine Tuesday.<\/p>\n

A 60-second firing by Beresheet\u2019s 100-pound-thrust main engine at 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT) Tuesday raised the apogee, or high point, of the spacecraft\u2019s elliptical orbit around the Earth to an altitude of more than 250,000 miles (405,000 kilometers), according to SpaceIL, the non-profit group that heads the privately-backed lunar lander mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s enough to reach the distance of the moon from the Earth, and it\u2019s actually our last maneuver to get closer to the moon,\u201d said Opher Doron, general manager of Israel Aerospace Industries\u2019 space division, which built the Beresheet spacecraft and operates the lander\u2019s control center. \u201cWe will have a couple of more maneuvers over the following days that are small maneuvers to slightly adjust our trajectory, but we are on our way to the moon, very successfully, right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since its launch Feb. 21 from Cape Canaveral on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the Beresheet lander has fired its main engine several times to raise its altitude closer to the moon. Beresheet, which means \u201cgenesis\u201d or \u201cin the beginning\u201d in Hebrew, rode as a secondary payload on the Falcon 9 rocket, which delivered the lander, an Indonesian communications satellite and a U.S. Air Force smallsat to an egg-shaped supersynchronous transfer orbit ranging as high as 43,000 miles (69,000 kilometers) from Earth.<\/p>\n

\"\"
This illustration shows how the Beresheet spacecraft\u2019s orbit-raising burns gradually raised the moon lander\u2019s altitude to intercept the moon April 4. Credit: SpaceIL<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Indonesian Nusantara Satu communications satellite and the Air Force\u2019s S5 space surveillance craft maneuvered into geostationary orbit over the equator, while Beresheet began orbit-raising burns to head for the moon. Beresheet\u2019s British-built LEROS 2b main engine, a modified version of an engine designed for commercial satellites, has conducted four orbit-raising firings since launch.<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Burn 1: <\/strong>Feb. 24 at 1129 GMT (6:29 a.m. EST); 30 seconds<\/li>\n
  • Burn 2: <\/strong>Feb. 28 at 1930 GMT (2:30 p.m. EST); 4 minutes<\/li>\n
  • Burn 3: <\/strong>March 7 at 1311 GMT (8:11 a.m. EST); 2 minutes, 32 seconds<\/li>\n
  • Burn 4: <\/strong>March 19 at 1230 GMT (8:30 a.m. EDT); 1 minute<\/li>\n<\/ul>\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

    \u201cWe\u2019ve learned to deal with difficulties we\u2019ve been having with the star trackers, and what that entails in maneuvering the spacecraft in a non-nominal fashion,\u201d Doron said Tuesday. \u201cSo that was working quite well today. We were lucky to have the engine firing in a communications pass. We actually saw it in real-time.\u201d<\/p>\n

    With its four landing legs extended, Beresheet has a diameter of around 7.5 feet (2.3 meters), and measures 4.9 feet (1.5 meters) tall.<\/p>\n

    Beresheet\u2019s main engine will fire again April 4 to steer into a preliminary orbit around the moon, followed by additional rocket burns to spiral closer to the lunar surface, setting up for landing April 11 on the moon\u2019s Mare Serenitatis region.<\/p>\n

    \"\"
    The completed SpaceIL Beresheet lunar lander is pictured with its solar panels attached. Credit: SpaceIL<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    The landing site is in the northern hemisphere of the moon\u2019s near side, where cameras will capture panoramic views of the lunar surface, and a science instrument will measure the magnetic field. NASA also provided a laser reflector on the solar-powered spacecraft, which scientists will use to determine the exact distance to the moon.<\/p>\n

    The U.S. space agency is also providing communications and tracking support to the mission, and the German space agency, DLR, provided facilities for Israeli engineers to simulate Beresheet\u2019s landing on the moon.<\/p>\n

    But Beresheet is privately-funded, and the mission aims to become the first to reach the moon without government backing. Billionaire philanthropists supported the $100 million mission\u2019s development through financial contributions.<\/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 contributed to the mission, in a press conference before 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

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

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

    A camera on-board the Beresheet lander captured this view of Earth from a distance of more than 23,000 miles (37,000 kilometers). Credit: SpaceIL The privately-funded Israeli Bersesheet lander is on course to enter orbit around the moon April 4 after another boost from its main engine Tuesday. A 60-second firing by Beresheet\u2019s 100-pound-thrust main engine […]<\/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":[2274,291,1672,1673,625,1561,1563,2700],"class_list":["post-13284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-beresheet","tag-commercial-space","tag-israel","tag-israel-aerospace-industries","tag-moon","tag-planetary-science","tag-solar-system","tag-spaceil"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13284"}],"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=13284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}