Beresheet
Beresheet — the first attempt by a non-government organisation to land on the Moon, built by the Israeli non-profit SpaceIL with Israel Aerospace Industries and launched on 22 February 2019 (UTC). It reached lunar orbit on 4 April, but during its landing on 11 April a fault in one of its inertial measurement units was followed by the main engine shutting down, and it struck Mare Serenitatis about 1,000 m/s faster than intended. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter later photographed the impact site.
Key facts
Mission & specifications
Mission
- Operator
- SpaceIL / Israel Aerospace Industries
- Launched
- February 22, 2019
- Status
- Lost
Trajectory
- Distance from the Sun
- 1 AU
- Computed from the cached position
- Distance from Earth
- 0.334 AU
- Computed from cached positions
- Distance from Venus
- 0.368 AU
- Computed from cached positions
Mission
Beresheet ("In the beginning" in Hebrew) grew out of Team SpaceIL, an Israeli entry in the Google Lunar X Prize, and was built by the non-profit SpaceIL with Israel Aerospace Industries, with support from the Israel Space Agency. It was launched on 22 February 2019 at 01:45 UTC, sharing a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral with an Indonesian communications satellite. Over six weeks it raised its orbit step by step until the Moon captured it on 4 April. On 11 April it began its landing in Mare Serenitatis. About ten minutes into the descent one of its inertial measurement units reset; soon after, the main engine stopped. Its last telemetry showed it 149 m above the surface, falling at 134 m/s and moving across the ground at 947 m/s, and the signal was lost at 19:23 UTC. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photographed the site eleven days later and found the mark where it struck, at 32.5956°N, 19.3496°E: it had arrived about 1,000 m/s faster than intended, at a very low angle. SpaceIL's preliminary investigation reported that a manual command sent after the fault set off the chain of events that shut the engine down. Its magnetometer returned data from lunar orbit and during the descent.
- 2019Beresheet launches toward the Moon on a Falcon 9 rocketLaunch
Sharing the rocket with an Indonesian communications satellite.
- 2019Captured by the MoonArrival
After six weeks raising its orbit around Earth.
- 2019Beresheet crashes in Mare SerenitatisMission end
Its main engine stopped during the descent; the signal was lost at 19:23 UTC.
Images
Images from open archives · credit shown per image