Beresheet, the Jewish state’s first lunar spacecraft, was slated to blast off from the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, overnight Thursday. It makes Israel only the fourth country after the US, the former Soviet Union and China to embark on such a mission, but it also will be the first such spacecraft to land on the moon funded by private initiative, rather than a solely government-funded enterprise. Beresheet was to be launched as part of a payload on Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. After detaching from the launcher, it was then to begin its elliptical orbit of the Earth. After two months, it is set to land on the moon in the Sea of Serenity on April 11. The landing sequence was set to take around 15 minutes, to be monitored by a joint group from the Israel Space Agency (ISA), the Weizmann Institute of Science and NASA. During a mission slated to last just two to three days on the moon, Beresheet will use onboard instruments to photograph the landing site, measure the moon’s magnetic field and send all the data back to SpaceIL’s Israel-based ground station in Yehud, via NASA’s Deep Space Network, according to SpaceIL vice president Yigal Harel. Millions of dollars in funding have gone into the project from several donors, including Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, SpaceIL chairman Morris Kahn, and the Science and Technology Ministry. “This is the first mission of a small country to the moon, but it’s a non-government mission to the moon, which is privately financed,” SpaceIL CEO Dr. Ido Anteby said on Monday at a press conference in Tel Aviv. “It will open new horizons to the moon for commercial opportunities.” “When the spacecraft lands on the moon during Passover, this is going to be one of the highlights of the State of Israel since its establishment. This is a national event,” Science and Technology Minister Ofir Akunis told the The Jerusalem Post. cnxps.cmd.push(function () { cnxps({ playerId: '36af7c51-0caf-4741-9824-2c941fc6c17b' }).render('4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6'); }); if(window.location.pathname.indexOf("656089") != -1){console.log("hedva connatix");document.getElementsByClassName("divConnatix")[0].style.display ="none";} He noted that the budget for the ministry is the highest ever this fiscal year (2018-2019), adding that: “I foresee a great future for the State of Israel in general and in the hi-tech industry and the space industry for the next decade.” Beresheet, traveling at speeds of 36,000 kilometers per hour, is carrying a digital time capsule loaded with Hebrew songs, stories, and Israel’s Declaration of Independence and national anthem, among other national symbols. The time capsule, along with the spacecraft, is set to remain on the moon indefinitely. This mission is no simple feat. At first the craft will enter Earth’s orbit, but it will have to enter the moon’s orbit when the two overlap. Once it lands, pinpointing its exact location on the moon will prove difficult as well. NASA’s laser retro-reflector is on board to help achieve this maneuver and help the team of scientists on Earth track its progress. “For many months, our team and IAI’s were engaged in testing the spacecraft and its systems, conducting complex experiments and preparing for every possible scenario of the mission,” Anteby said. SpaceIL and ISA are collaborating with NASA and the Weizmann Institute of Science to improve the tracking and communication with the module before, during and after landing. Scientists will also measure the magnetic field at the landing site by using a laser beam system engineered by NASA that will help them pinpoint its exact location. “I’m thrilled to extend progress in commercial cooperation that we’ve made in low-Earth orbit to the lunar environment – with this new agreement with the Israel Space Agency and SpaceIL,” said NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine when the agreement was signed last year. “Innovative partnerships like this are going to be essential as we go forward to the moon and create new opportunities there.” Beresheet began with SpaceIL founders Yariv Bash, Yonatan Winetraub and Kfir Damari in 2010. The effort was originally part of a Google Lunar X competition with a prize of $20 million. SpaceIL entered the race in 2012 and, after partnering with IAI, became the first international team in 2015 to sign a contract with aerospace manufacturer SpaceX and have its financial and technical details approved by the contest. The original competition involved placing a spacecraft on the moon’s surface, traveling 500 meters on the moon, and transmitting high-definition video and images back to Earth. Israel was one of five finalists in the final stage but no winner was ever declared. SpaceIL vowed to maintain its efforts to put Israel on the moon, arguing that its motivation was not the money, but about “showing the next generation that anything is possible – that even our small country can push the limits of imagination,” Anteby said in March. “Space is the ultimate thing. It’s something that is so hard to do, even today... rockets still blow up; it’s still rocket science. This is one of the ultimate technological-engineering challenges,” Bash said, noting the difficulties of past space-bound projects. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara watched the launch from the control room of the IAI. The prime minister called Israel a "small but huge country" noting that despite its smaller land mass and population compared to the other participating nations, Israel is a "giant in initiative, huge in achievements." He praised the scientists and philanthropists who worked on the project and called for a moment to remember fallen Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, his son Asaf who died in a plane crash and his wife Rona who died this year of cancer. Netanyahu called the moon launch a moment to remember which reached "far beyond money, even more than technology. There is great inspiration here." Nimrod Sheffer, CEO of Israel Aerospace Industries, earlier this week praised the collaboration, saying, “As the Israeli home of space exploration, it was only natural that we [IAI] would join SpaceIL’s wonderful and visionary project. The cooperation between us is a shining example of the extraordinary accomplishments we can achieve in the State of Israel.”Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara watched the launch from the control room of the IAI.<doc-sep>This image was taken during the first drive of NASA's Perseverance rover on Mars on March 4, 2021. The team has spent the weeks since landing checking out the rover to prepare for surface operations. Why we are going to Mars Four astronauts from three countries are preparing to leave Earth this week aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, marking the third-ever crewed flight for Elon Musk's company, and the first from SpaceX to make use of a previously flown rocket booster and spacecraft. CNN's Rachel Crane reports from Cape Canaveral, Florida. NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins is helped out of the SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft onboard the SpaceX GO Navigator recovery ship after he, NASA astronauts Shannon Walker, Victor Glover and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Soichi Noguchi, landed in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Panama City, Florida, Sunday, May 2, 2021. NASA's SpaceX Crew-1 mission was the first crew rotation flight of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket with astronauts to the International Space Station as part of the agency's Commercial Crew Program. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls) WENCHANG, CHINA - APRIL 23: A Long March-5B Y2 rocket carrying the core module of China's space station, Tianhe, stands at the launching area of the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on April 23, 2021 in Wenchang, Hainan Province of China. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images) Snapshot from the first full STARFORGE simulation. Nicknamed the "Anvil of Creation," a giant molecular cloud with individual star formation and comprehensive feedback, including protostellar jets, radiation, stellar winds and core-collapse supernovae. What it's like to walk 220 miles above Earth (CNN Business) — Morris Kahn, an Israeli software entrepreneur, heard about young engineers in his home country who wanted to build a robotic moon lander and win a $20 million prize. It was an ambitious plan. Only governments with massive treasuries have ever safely landed a spacecraft on the lunar surface: the United States, China and the former Soviet Union. But, Kahn figured the group might have the gusto to get it done. “I asked them whether they had any money, and they said ‘money….money…What’s that?’” Kahn jokingly told CNN Business. “I said, ‘Come to my office and I’ll give you $100,000. No questions asked.’” The team, named SpaceIL, initially estimated it would have to raise less than $10 million. A decade later, they’ve spent roughly $100 million. That includes more than $40 million of Kahn’s money and millions more raised from friends and business acquaintances. “Little did I realize how much it would involve me and what responsibility I would eventually undertake,” he said. On Thursday evening, SpaceIL’s spacecraft — called Beresheet, a Hebrew word that means “in the beginning” — launched aboard a SpaceX rocket. It will take a couple of months for Beresheet to reach the moon, and landing will be the most difficult part. But if it is successful, it will be the first-ever privately funded probe to do so. SpaceIL won’t win the $20 million grand prize from Google Lunar X Prize, which began in 2007 with the goal of inspiring private enterprise to develop new space travel technologies. The competition was disbanded in January 2018 after years of deadline delays and no winner. Alon Ron/SpaceIL SpaceIL's Beresheet spacecraft is five feet tall and weighs about 1,300 pounds fully fueled. But Kahn said it was never about the money. “This was purely philanthropic,” he said. “We wanted to prove a point — that we could do it.” Kahn is a South African-Israeli serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Amdocs (DOX), which makes management software for telecom firms. Forbes lists his net worth as $1 billion, but he jokes that when you’re truly rich, you don’t know exactly how much money you have. When he met the SpaceIL founders, he didn’t know much about space travel, or its reputation for costing astronomical levels of time and resources. And that, Kahn said, was a good thing. “By the time we realized it, it was too late,” he said. “We were too far in.” Funding a moonshot Kahn said SpaceIL decided early on that it would not be a commercial venture and was set up as a nonprofit. The group received about $2 million from the Israeli government. And Kahn set out to convince philanthropists that a moonshot was worth it, even with no immediate business prospects. “It is extremely difficult to raise money for something that people find hard to conceive. And, as a matter of fact, I think people were a little bit sorry for us, that we were trying to do something that was almost impossible,” he said. Courtesy SpaceIL Billionaire Morris Kahn spearheaded the effort to fund Israel's first-ever moon mission. In late 2017, as an X Prize-imposed deadline loomed, SpaceIL’s outlook was bleak. The group said it needed another $30 million but a fundraising push appeared to fall flat. “Some of the donors wanted to know that there would be money to really complete this project,” Kahn said. “And they said, ‘Are you prepared to tell us that you will underwrite this project?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I am.” Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, the Casino magnate, Israel advocate and US political donor, gave a total of $24 million. Other major SpaceIL backers who gave around $5 million each include Nancy and Stephen Grand, a US real estate developer; The Schusterman Foundation, which is backed by an oil and gas fortune; Sami Sagol, whose family made their money in plastics manufacturing; and Canadian-Israeli real estate developer Sylvan Adams gave $5 million. At a press conference on Wednesday, Adams said they were all “crazy” to take on a moon mission. But “the craziest person in all of this has to be Morris Kahn,” he said. “Morris was the visionary. He believed in their dream and financially supported it.”<doc-sep>SpaceX Falcon 9 launching from Cape Canaveral on February 21, 2019 with the Beresheet lunar lander onboard. Image : SpaceX Israel has taken an important first step to the Moon following the launch of its privately-built Beresheet lunar lander, which entered space late yesterday aboard a SpaceX rocket. Advertisement The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket departed Earth at 8:45 p.m. ET on Thursday, February 21 from Cape Canaveral Florida, reports SpaceNews. In addition to the Beresheet lunar lander, the rocket successfully delivered the Indonesian Nusantara Satu telecommunications satellite and the S5 experimental smallsat owned by the U.S. Air Force. The launch of Beresheet, which means “Genesis” or “In the beginning” in Hebrew, represents a significant milestone for both Israel and the private sector. The four-legged lunar lander represents the country’s first attempt to land on the Moon, but it also happens to be the first privately- funded lunar lander. Should the mission be successful, Israel would join an exclusive club of countries to have placed a lander on the Moon, the others being the United States, Russia, and China. Up, up, and away—yesterday’s launch from Cape Canaveral. Image : SpaceX Beresheet was built by the Israeli not-for-profit SpaceIL, which is financed by donations from individual private sponsors. The company’s self-described vision is to “advance the discourse on science and engineering in Israel and to acquaint the young generation with the exciting opportunities in their future, which STEM studies make possible.” T o save on fuel, t he spacecraft is taking a more convoluted route to the Moon than usual . As the Associated Press reports, Beresheet’s orbit around Earth will increase in size until the Moon’s gravitational tug is strong enough to capture the craft. An attempted landing at the Sea of Serenity—a large, dark, basaltic plain also known as a lunar mare— is likely to occur on April 11. During its descent, the spacecraft will measure the Moon’s magnetic field, potentially revealing new details about iron core deep below, reports the New York Times. The landing sequence should take about 15 minutes—a delicate procedure that’ll be monitored by a joint group from the Israel Space Agency, NASA, and the Weizmann Institute of Science, reports the Jerusalem Post. Advertisement Once planted on the Moon, Beresheet will transmit photos and videos back to Earth, per SpaceNews. The probe is also equipped with a series of mirrors known as retroreflectors. Lasers from the surface of Earth will shine onto these mirrors and then reflect back to Earth, enabling scientists to measure the distance from Earth to Moon with high accuracy, the NYT reports. Artist’s depiction of Beresheet lunar lander. Image : SpaceIL Advertisement Beresheet was originally designed to compete for the $20 million Google Lunar X Prize, which was discontinued on January 23, 2018 because “no team will make a launch attempt to reach the moon by the March 31, 2018, deadline,” in the words of X Prize founder and chairman Peter Diamandis. As a stipulation of the contest, lunar probes were required to move 500 meters (1,640 feet) by whichever means possible. Beresheet was supposed to achieve this by taking off and landing again nearby, but as the NYT pointed out, mission planners are no longer bound by this requirement. A decision to make the lunar hop won’t be made until after the landing in April, but there’s really nothing to gain from such a m aneuver —one that could unnecessarily damage the probe. The Beresheet mission will only last for a few days, as the lunar lander won’t be able to withstand the temperature extremes on the surface. But its legacy will endure in the form of its cargo; the probe contains hundreds of digital files, including the Torah, the Israeli flag, artwork, and an archive containing 30 million pages of information , the NYT reports. Advertisement “Congratulations to SpaceIL and the Israel Space Agency,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine in an agency press release. “This is a historic step for all nations and commercial space as we look to extend our collaborations beyond low-Earth orbit and on to the Moon.” As for the SpaceX Falcon 9 that delivered the goods, its first stage booster made its third successful trip into space, and it landed successfully on a drone ship in the Atlantic ocean. In a tweet, however, Musk said the re-entry was not without incident. Advertisement Despite the challenge, Musk said the first stage rocket will be used for a fourth launch in April. Advertisement [SpaceNews, Associated Press, New York Times, Jerusalem Post]<doc-sep>A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida on Thursday night carrying Israel's first lunar lander on a mission that if successful will make the Jewish state only the fourth nation to achieve a controlled touchdown on the moon's surface. The unmanned robotic lander dubbed Beresheet - Hebrew for the biblical phrase "in the beginning" - soared into space from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at about 8.45 pm.EST (1.45 GMT Friday) atop the 23-story-tall rocket. Beresheet, about the size of a dish-washing machine, was one of three sets of cargo carried aloft by the Falcon 9, part of the private rocket fleet of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's California-based company SpaceX. The rocket's two other payloads were a telecommunications satellite for Indonesia and an experimental satellite for the US Air Force. Beresheet was jettisoned into Earth orbit about 34 minutes after launch, followed 15 minutes later by the release of the two satellites, according to a SpaceX webcast of the event.<doc-sep>
Beresheet will lift off atop a SpaceX rocket. A rocket will take off from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Thursday night carrying Israel's Beresheet spacecraft, which aims to make history twice: as the first private-sector landing on the Moon, and the first from the Jewish state. The 585-kilogram Beresheet, which means "Genesis" in Hebrew, is to lift off at 8:45 pm (0145 GMT Friday) atop a Falcon 9 rocket from the private US-based SpaceX company of flamboyant entrepreneur Elon Musk. The Israeli craft will be placed in Earth orbit, then begin a seven-week trip under its own power to reach the Moon and touch down on April 11 in a large plain. 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. "For the future of our children, the State of Israel and for the belief that anything is possible, join us and wish Beresheet luck on its way to the Moon!" said a collective message from SpaceIL, the non-profit organization that designed the Israeli craft. Entrepreneurs, not government space agencies, financed the mission, initially as a potential entry in the Google Lunar XPRIZE contest. That competition planned to award $30 million to encourage scientists and entrepreneurs to offer relatively inexpensive lunar missions. The contest closed without a winner in March 2018 but the SpaceIL team continued its mission and purchased a spot on a SpaceX rocket. 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 will carry 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.