POST TIME: 12 April, 2019 11:36:41 AM
Israel's spacecraft crashes on Moon
Independent Online Desk

Israel's spacecraft crashes on Moon

Pictures of the moon plus a selfie taken by Beresheet as it made its descent. BBC Photo


The Israeli spacecraft - called Beresheet - attempted a soft landing, but suffered technical problems on its descent to the Moon's surface.


Israel hoped to become the fourth country to land a spacecraft on the Moon.

Only government space agencies from the former Soviet Union, the US and China have made successful Moon landings.




After a seven-week journey to the Moon, the unmanned spacecraft approached a final orbit at 15km (9m) from the surface.

Tensions were high in the command centre as communications were lost before Opher Doron, the general manager of Israel Aerospace Indurstries' space division, announced there had been a failure in the spacecraft.

"We unfortunately have not managed to land successfully," he said.The audience outside had been through a turbulent journey themselves as they watched the first part of the landing go to plan.





Dr Kimberly Cartier, an astronomer and science news reporter, tweeted that she was "sad about how #Beresheet ended" but "proud of the entire @TeamSpaceIL".Beresheet, which is Hebrew for "in the beginning", was a joint project between SpaceIL, a privately funded Israeli non-profit organisation, and Israel Aerospace Industries.

Why did it take weeks to get to the Moon?



Its journey took it on a series of ever-widening orbits around the Earth, before being captured by the Moon's gravity and moving into lunar orbit on 4th April.The average distance to the Moon is 380,000km (240,000 miles) - Beresheet travelled more than 15 times that distance. And the main thing driving this was cost.


Sharing the ride into space significantly reduced its launch costs - but it meant the spacecraft had to take a more convoluted route.How hard was it to land?







What was the spacecraft supposed to do on the Moon?

Its first job was to use its high resolution cameras to take some photos - including a selfie - which it did manage before the crash.



Temperatures on the Moon are extreme, and as the Sun rose the spacecraft would have been unlikely to survive the heat.How significant was this mission?

Over 60 years of space exploration, only three nations have made it down onto the Moon.

The former Soviet Union achieved the first soft landing with its spacecraft Luna 9 in 1966. Nasa followed this by getting the first humans to the Moon in 1969. Then, China's Change-4 spacecraft touched down on the far-side of the Moon earlier this year.

Israel would have been the fourth nation to join this elite club.

But it was the low-price tag - and the fact that the mission was not funded by a major space agency - that was significant.Beresheet was not alone in pursuing low-cost lunar exploration.



Both Nasa and Esa have also announced their intention to use commercial landers to deliver scientific payloads to the lunar surface.BBC.