Updates Space IL Mission - First Private Lunar Landing

[Sbb1413]

After 8 weeks, SpaceX will become the first private company to send something on the way to the Moon!
Source: SpaceX Rocket Launches 1st Private Moon Lander for Israel

 

[Kyle]

After 8 weeks, SpaceX will become the first private company to send something on the way to the Moon!
Source: SpaceX Rocket Launches 1st Private Moon Lander for Israel

ULA has launched NASA spacecraft to the Moon and they are considered a commercial company.

 

[mahdavi3d]

 

[Nicholas Kang]

And entered lunar orbit!

WASHINGTON — SpaceIL announced April 4 that its Beresheet spacecraft has entered orbit around the moon, setting the stage for a landing attempt in a week.

The lander fired its main engine for six minutes starting at 10:18 a.m. Eastern time, slowing the spacecraft down by about 1,000 kilometers per hour, enough for it to be captured into orbit around the moon. SpaceIL said in a statement that that maneuver went as expected, putting the spacecraft into an elliptical orbit with a perilune of 500 kilometers and apolune of 10,000 kilometers.

“After six weeks in space, we have succeeded in overcoming another critical stage by entering the moon’s gravity,” said Ido Anteby, chief executive of SpaceIL, in a statement. “We still have a long way until the lunar landing, but I’m convinced our team will complete the mission to land the first Israeli spacecraft on the moon, making us all proud.”

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-ullrNON-g"]SpaceIL - Maneuver Lunar Capture - YouTube[/ame]

Beresheet will later move into a circular orbit 200 kilometers high in preparation for its landing attempt, scheduled for April 11. The spacecraft will try to touch down softly on Mare Serenitatis, or Sea of Serenity, in the northern hemisphere of the near side of the moon.

If successful, Israel will become only the fourth nation to make a soft landing on the moon, after the former Soviet Union, the United States and China. Israel is the seventh nation to orbit the moon, counting the three nations that have landed as well as India, Japan and the European Space Agency.

Source: SpaceNews.com

(P.S.: I think SpaceIL mission deserves a thread of its own. I plan to start a new thread for the mission by combining several posts pertaining to the mission from this thread. Feel free to comment/object.)

 

[IronRain]

Beresheet is about to land on the moon:

 

[fred18]

Is it me or they crashed?

 

[kuddel]

...seems they have/had a main engine out...looks like the -Z RCS tries hard, but decelerating only (-)0.7 m/s^2 isn't enought.

 

[Pioneer]

Yup. Crashed

 

[kuddel]

They've come *very* far, but a failed main-engine is something very unforgiving at landing.

 

[fred18]

I saw that falling values increasing over 100 m/s and going red and I thought something wasn t right. From the live broadcast it seemed to me that they managed to recover the main engine resetting the spacecraft but just one second before the crash...

 

[Notebook]

Israel's Beresheet spacecraft crashes on Moon
By Rebecca Morelle
Science Correspondent, BBC News

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47879538

 

[boogabooga]

After 8 weeks, SpaceX will become the first private company to send something on the way to the Moon!
Source: SpaceX Rocket Launches 1st Private Moon Lander for Israel

ULA has launched NASA spacecraft to the Moon and they are considered a commercial company.

No, that is not what the article says. It says that it's the first private moon lander. As in, on the PAYLOAD side.


Even that claim is a bit dubious given IAI involvement, which is owned by the government of Isreal. After all, you can't claim to be BOTH the first private moon lander and the first moon lander from a given country, since private would mean that you do not represent the entire country...

 

[jgrillo2002]

This sucks! Hope they can figure out what went wrong and send another one up.

 

[4throck]

I noticed that the main engine stopped one or two times for a few seconds during descent. Perhaps it was by design to recalculate and reorient the spacecraft, but it did seem odd.
Telemetry also seemed to go off at those times.

I also think they had a engine problem before, when doing the first Earth orbit maneuver.
So I speculate that the main engine was unreliable for time critical maneuvers.

I do hope they figure it out and launch a second one.
They got very close to success