Billings and Moskowitz report that aiming for the Moon showcases Israel’s strongest abilities,” Kahn said earlier. “We dare to dream—innovation, desire, curiosity and complexity are part of our DNA, and this project has them all. I want to get the younger generation excited about and interested in space, just like the Apollo program did for the United States.” From the early days, that ethos has driven SpaceIL’s planning, which, its members say, has been centered around education and outreach rather than turning a profit.
The 1.5-meter-tall Beresheet carried a small time capsule of cultural artifacts for long-term preservation on the near-static lunar surface. It also had NASA-supplied laser retroreflectors, which can be used by other spacecraft in or near lunar orbit for precise ranging and metrology. On Beresheet’s way down to the surface, a magnetometer built by the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, was intended to scan the desolate terrain below, gathering new data about the landscape’s magnetic field that could help unveil the moon’s deepest origins and history.
Beresheet, a modest Israeli spacecraft with the audacious aim of making a soft landing on the moon, came close but ultimately failed in its goal on Thursday. The probe crashed on the lunar surface after engine and communication troubles arose shortly before its planned touchdown. The vehicle, engineered by an Israeli nonprofit organization called SpaceIL, would have been the first private spacecraft to make a lunar landing—and would have made Israel only the fourth country to do so, after the U.S., the former Soviet Union and China.
Managed by I2M Consulting, LLC