Space IL - Beresheet

“Big Dreams for A Small Country” - SpaceIL

An Israeli spacecraft is on it’s way to the moon and the whole world is watching! SpaceIL, is an Israeli organization established in 2011 that won the Google Lunar X Prize contest to land a spacecraft on the moon.

Beresheet, name meaning “genesis” in Hebrew, is the first Israeli spacecraft to head to the moon and more than that it is the first privately funded mission to reach lunar orbit, and hopefully land on the moon’s surface. The spacecraft itself is about 330 pounds and carries multiple cameras which have already captured some amazing shots, such as the one presented at the top of this blog post. If you are interested in diving into a deeper look at the technical work behind designing the spacecraft you can check out SpaceIL’s website here

_{^{Figure 1: Image of the Beresheet Spacecraft (Credits to SpaceIL and the Beresheet Spacecraft)}}

The mission goes much further than just the engineering challenges and marvels it presents. A lot of emphasis has been placed on the amount of enthusiasm it has brought to Israel and other countries looking to enter the space exploration field. The whole world seems to be watching, and SpaceIL is handling it well!

UPDATE (04/11/2019):

The mission has ended, and left the scientific community with a bittersweet taste. The Beresheet spacecraft, that with each bit sent back to Earth made history, crashed into the Lunar surface at 10:56PM Israel time. The 330-pound spacecraft crashed into the moon after incorrectly shutting off the main engine intended to carry it slowly to the dusty surface. The engineers reacted quickly, and rightfully and rebooted the main engine, however by the time they expected to be back online, they realized they had lost communication with the spacecraft. Beresheet had sadly crashed.

_{^{Figure 2: Before crashing, Beresheet took this amazing shot of the lunar surface as it approached it. (Credits to SpaceIL and the Beresheet Spacecraft)}}

If the spacecraft had successfully landed on the moon, Israel would have been the fourth country to have landed a spacecraft on the moon. Space is Hard, and for the small budget SpaceIL operated with, they should be more than proud of everything they were able to achieve. Today marks the end of Beresheet but hopefully not the end of SpaceIL and I hope it is not the last we hear from them. It is organizations like it, and the enthusiasm they drive forward, that makes space exploration all the more interesting.

Beresheet will forever live with me, and with all those who followed the little spacecraft that could.