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Israel moon landing: Beresheet spacecraft to drop down onto lunar surface and become first of its kind

Andrew Griffin
Thursday 11 April 2019 09:16 BST
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SpaceX launches first privately-funded spacecraft towards moon

A private Israeli lunar lander is about to drop onto the Moon, becoming the first of its kind to do so.

The spacecraft, known as Beresheet or Genesis in Hebrew, is in orbit over the Moon and is slowly dropping down until it will land on the surface.

When SpaceIL lands on the moon, it will set two major firsts for lunar exploration. It will be the first time that a moon lander has come from a country that wasn't China, Russia or the US, and it will also mark the first time that such a mission has been completed by a private company rather than a public space agency.

When it does, and lands on its four legs, it will get to work with the on-board magnetometer it is carrying to examine the moon's magnetic field. It is also carrying a reflector that will be able to bounce lasers back to the Earth, allowing for more detailed calcuations of how far away the Moon is.

It will only do its work for two days. After that, with no thermal control, the lander will heat up in the sun and die.

It will leave behind the vast "time capsule" it took with it, stored digitally. As well as a fully copy of Wikipedia, it is also carrying a variety of different documents related to the country from where it came, including a copy of the Israeli national anthem and the country's flag.

The lander has been orbiting the Moon since last week, when it arrived at the lunar after being sent up from Earth on board a SpaceX rocket that set off in February.

Its landing will see it drop down onto the Mare Serenitatis area of the Moon. Its controllers have joked that it will make it their one way or another: either in one piece or smashed up on the surface, if the landing does not go well.

It has already used its engines to get in place closer to the moon, shrinking its orbit so that it gets closer. When it arrives, it will turn off its engines and float down using the Moon's limited gravity, which will pull it down for what engineers hope will be a soft landing that allows it to go on to examine the rock that will serve as its home forever.

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