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SpaceIL
SpaceIL is an Israeli private non profit association, established in 2011, that competed in the Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP) contest to land a spacecraft on the Moon by private organization.
SpaceIL successfully launched its Beresheet lander on 22 February 2019 at 01:45 UTC; it entered lunar orbit on 4 April 2019 at 14:18 UTC. On 11 April 2019, during the landing procedure, a problem occurred in the final stage of the landing process. Consequently, communications were lost with the spacecraft, long enough for the speed braking process to fail, and the vehicle crashed on the lunar surface. The Beresheet mission had included plans to measure the Moon's magnetic field at the landing site, and was carrying a laser retroreflector, and a "time capsule" containing analog and digital information, created by the Arch Mission Foundation. Beresheet was the first Israeli spacecraft to travel beyond Earth's orbit and was the first privately funded landing on the Moon. Though the spacecraft crashed, Israel became the seventh country to make lunar orbit and the fourth country, after the Soviet Union, the United States, and China to attempt a soft landing on the Moon.
Two days after the failed attempt to soft land on the Moon, SpaceIL announced plans for a second attempt, Beresheet 2. This mission has been suspended in 2025 due to lack of funding.
The SpaceIL team was founded as a nonprofit organization wishing to promote scientific and technological education in Israel. Its total budget for the mission was estimated at US$100 million, mostly donated by Israeli billionaire Morris Kahn, Sheldon Edelson and other philanthropists, as well as the Israel Space Agency (ISA).
SpaceIL began as a competitor for the Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP), which offered US$30 million in prizes to inspire teams to develop low-cost methods of robotic lunar exploration. The SpaceIL entry was unique among GLXP contenders, in that instead of building a tracked or wheeled rover, SpaceIL planned to meet the requirement to travel 500 meters (1,600 ft) on the lunar surface by having the lander "hop" using rocket engine propulsion from its landing site to another site more than 500 meters away.
By June 2017, the lander spacecraft was undergoing integration and testing, and in August 2017, Google Lunar XPrize announced an extension of the prize competition deadline to 31 March 2018, but the contest ended without a winner when no team launched before the deadline. Nevertheless, SpaceIL continued development and fabrication.
By January 2019, testing was complete and the spacecraft was delivered to Cape Canaveral, Florida for launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The mission was successfully launched on 22 February 2019.
The CEO of SpaceIL was Ido Anteby, and the president remains Morris Kahn.
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SpaceIL
SpaceIL is an Israeli private non profit association, established in 2011, that competed in the Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP) contest to land a spacecraft on the Moon by private organization.
SpaceIL successfully launched its Beresheet lander on 22 February 2019 at 01:45 UTC; it entered lunar orbit on 4 April 2019 at 14:18 UTC. On 11 April 2019, during the landing procedure, a problem occurred in the final stage of the landing process. Consequently, communications were lost with the spacecraft, long enough for the speed braking process to fail, and the vehicle crashed on the lunar surface. The Beresheet mission had included plans to measure the Moon's magnetic field at the landing site, and was carrying a laser retroreflector, and a "time capsule" containing analog and digital information, created by the Arch Mission Foundation. Beresheet was the first Israeli spacecraft to travel beyond Earth's orbit and was the first privately funded landing on the Moon. Though the spacecraft crashed, Israel became the seventh country to make lunar orbit and the fourth country, after the Soviet Union, the United States, and China to attempt a soft landing on the Moon.
Two days after the failed attempt to soft land on the Moon, SpaceIL announced plans for a second attempt, Beresheet 2. This mission has been suspended in 2025 due to lack of funding.
The SpaceIL team was founded as a nonprofit organization wishing to promote scientific and technological education in Israel. Its total budget for the mission was estimated at US$100 million, mostly donated by Israeli billionaire Morris Kahn, Sheldon Edelson and other philanthropists, as well as the Israel Space Agency (ISA).
SpaceIL began as a competitor for the Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP), which offered US$30 million in prizes to inspire teams to develop low-cost methods of robotic lunar exploration. The SpaceIL entry was unique among GLXP contenders, in that instead of building a tracked or wheeled rover, SpaceIL planned to meet the requirement to travel 500 meters (1,600 ft) on the lunar surface by having the lander "hop" using rocket engine propulsion from its landing site to another site more than 500 meters away.
By June 2017, the lander spacecraft was undergoing integration and testing, and in August 2017, Google Lunar XPrize announced an extension of the prize competition deadline to 31 March 2018, but the contest ended without a winner when no team launched before the deadline. Nevertheless, SpaceIL continued development and fabrication.
By January 2019, testing was complete and the spacecraft was delivered to Cape Canaveral, Florida for launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The mission was successfully launched on 22 February 2019.
The CEO of SpaceIL was Ido Anteby, and the president remains Morris Kahn.
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