
A private spacecraft from Israel will attempt a moon landing Thursday - headalgorithm
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/04/a-private-spacecraft-from-israel-will-attempt-a-moon-landing-thursday/
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JshWright
I took my daughter to this launch (we happened to be vacationing in the area).
It was an evening launch and we spent the day at KSC. On the bus tour around
the launch pads we happened to sit right behind a couple members of the
SpaceIL team (including the chief systems engineer). They were extremely
friendly and happy to answer all sorts of questions.

Best of luck to the team on this exciting day!

~~~
JshWright
Unfortunately it looks like the landing was unsuccessful.

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nir
This spacecraft was the main thing my three year old and five year old were
talking about all week, so at least partial success here :) Next time!

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flyinglizard
It's semi-private; the funding is private, and the team is lead by volunteers,
but much of this effort is supported by Israeli Aerospace Industries which is
a government owned company. I'm not sure how much, but you have the IAI logo
plastered all over the mission.

What's true is that it's not a government initiated program per se, but it's
still not entirely private either.

Commendable nonetheless.

~~~
beagle3
AFAIK all funding was private, and though IAI provided expertise, they were
paid for it (likely at-cost and not for-profit, but still)

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Faaak
Citing wikipedia because it's not on the article:

"In October 2015, SpaceIL signed a contract for a launch from Cape Canaveral
in Florida on a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster, via Spaceflight Industries.[15][40]
It was launched on 22 February 2019 at 0145 UTC (20:45 local time on 21
February) as a secondary payload,[4][6][23] along with the telecom satellite
PSN-6.[41] Beresheet is being controlled by a command center in Yehud,
Israel.[42]

From 24 February to 19 March, the main engine was used four times for orbit
raising, putting its apogee close to the Moon's orbital distance.[43] The
spacecraft performed maneuvers so as to be successfully captured into an
elliptical lunar orbit on 4 April 2019, and has adjusted its flight pattern in
a circular orbit around the Moon. Once in the correct circular orbit, it will
decelerate for a soft landing on the lunar surface, planned for 11 April
2019.[44] "

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dlgeek
They crashed. Based on the occasional English commentary during the stream,
they had an IMU failure, that recovered, but then a main engine failure right
near the end of the descent. They got the engine online again, but just
looking the speeds on the telemetry, it was too late.

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zymhan
Yup, sadly.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19638357](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19638357)

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/science/israel-moon-
landi...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/science/israel-moon-landing-
beresheet.html)

> On the way down, the main engine cut out. The engine was successfully
> restarted, but then communications were cut off, and no more information was
> sent back.

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rosegarden0
I wonder why this news isn’t as widespread as SpaceX launches. I would have
loved to follow this from the beginning! Whats the best place to stay updated
about this specific mission? - what a time to be alive

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yonixw
You can watch the landing here [1] starting in 90min

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMdUcchBYRA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMdUcchBYRA)

~~~
DannyB2
Thanks

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atemerev
Mission budget is around $100 million (including launch costs).

Which is modest for moon landing attempts, but still well outside of a one-
shot fully privately funded initiative.

Perhaps still a possibility of being crowdsourced.

Google Lunar X prize was $20 million, which is more realistic for a private
program.

Still, this is a _great_ leap forward. Now, students routinely design and
launch satellites (around $50k for a CubeSat launch); I hope that someday the
same will go for lunar probes.

~~~
jandrese
$100 million is like 1/1000 of Jeff Bezos net worth. He could easily fully
fund another moon landing mission if he wanted.

~~~
atemerev
He owns Blue Origin, so perhaps he will.

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stuff4ben
Seems as though it crashed? The telemetry feed cut out at 149m from the
surface. Lots of people with hands on their heads.

~~~
stuff4ben
There was a bunch of Hebrew being spoken and then they announced in English
that they were not successful.

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yhersk0vitz
2 hours to go:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7GUHd554NY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7GUHd554NY)

Also: "The competition has already announced that if Beresheet's landing goes
as planned, the team will win a $1 million Moonshot Award."

~~~
distant_hat
If anyone deserves a Moonshot award, it has to be them.

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tracer4201
Any word what imaging or video capabilities are on the lander? Would love to
see video from the surface in 4K.

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radley
Probably not. The goal of the project was to demonstrate a private company
landing safely on the moon. Their second goal is for it to travel a short
distance on the surface.

~~~
jandrese
Might have met the second goal depending on how well it bounced.

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TY
Even though they crashed, this is still a monumental achievement. For once I
agree with Bibi, that if you fail you should try again.

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age_bronze
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spacecraft_on_the_Moon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spacecraft_on_the_Moon)

For everyone wondering how common is it, it seems like it took everyone
multiple tries before figuring out how to properly land something there.

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penagwin
I'm really excited about this! The more entities that can launch, and land
vehicles the better! This will surely benefit everyone!

Random though, when private companies like SpaceX "replace" say NASA's service
of launching rockets, would this free more resources for NASA to explore other
things?

~~~
JshWright
That's exactly the goal of NASA's commercial launch programs (ISS resupply,
etc). NASA wants to (and should) focus on science, and pushing the limits
further. Commercial companies like SpaceX are now taking on the role of
operating (and refining) the proven technologies.

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infinite_luck
Unfortunately, it crashed. They said they were having problems with the main
engine. They restarted it, but as it was restarting it seems as if it gained
too much velocity. It seems like the engine started again, but only right
before it impacted with the surface at 134 m/s.

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mtw
If it's a private spacecraft, how do you make this work financially? How do
you find $100m ? It's not like there are commercial opportunities possible on
the moon. Or the technology would be re-used by Israel for rockets?

~~~
twic
_In April 2014, American philanthropist Sheldon Adelson donated US$16.4
million to the project,[13] and in June 2017, the Israeli Space Agency (ISA)
announced a donation of additional 7.5 million ILS (US$2,083,333), after
having donated 2 million ILS (US$555,556) in previous years.[14]_

 _In November 2017, SpaceIL announced that they needed US$30 million to finish
the project. Morris Kahn resigned from chairing the board, and promised $10M
if the organization could raise the additional $20M.[20] The amount required
was produced by a few major donors.[21]_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceIL#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceIL#History)

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smogcutter
One step closer to
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUnSGz8vW0U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUnSGz8vW0U)

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kaycebasques
> a nascent commercial space effort that seeks to develop a base of economic
> activity on the Moon

Can someone clue me in on what types of commercial activity will happen first?

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dr_dshiv
Science first, but the biggest economic driver will be tourism and sports.
Moonball will be the biggest sporting event broadcast on Earth. Jumping 20
feet for the dunk? Yes please.

But before team sports, dirtbiking will be a special once-in-a-lifetime moon
tourist experience.

Going forward, there will be special culinary options due to the excessively
large moonfruits that can be grown in low gravity.

The trip will only take a day of travel. Plenty of living room in those
enormous natural moon caves (lava tubes). Let's have some fun up there.

~~~
mschuster91
> Science first, but the biggest economic driver will be tourism and sports.

Tourism for a couple of ultra-rich, yeah, but sports? Need massive structures
for that one.

I rather believe that Moon commercial usage will be dominated by resource
gathering: mining for rare materials deposited by aeons of asteroid hits,
helium-3 (assuming the Moon Nazis from Iron Sky left us anything), or anything
that can be chemically converted to rocket fuels in order to provide efficient
fueling options for Mars and beyond missions.

~~~
dr_dshiv
Look up moon lava tubes. There are huge prebuilt structures on the moon.

Sports create value through mass attention. The moon is more than a
passthrough to Mars. The moon is fun and fun is money.

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ddebernardy
It's neat that they'll be live streaming it.

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majortennis
unmanned though right?

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w8vY7ER
right, can see more about the lander here if curious
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceIL#Beresheet_lander](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceIL#Beresheet_lander)

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Fjolsvith
I wonder if it could be seen from earth by telescope.

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adrianN
The Keck Telescope has a 10m mirror, so it can resolve roughly 1.2 * 400n / 10
radians (at 400nm wavelength)[1]. The distance to the Moon is about 384000km.
If you plug things into Wolfram Alpha [2], you get about 18m for the smallest
object on the Moon that can be resolved by the Keck Telescope. I suppose that
there are more technical problems that further limit the resolution. It seems
unlikely that you'll be able to see anything using a telescope.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_resolution#Explanation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_resolution#Explanation)

[2]
[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=tan((1.2*400nm+%2F+10m...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=tan\(\(1.2*400nm+%2F+10m\)\)+*+distance+to+the+moon)

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dillonjeff
50 years late

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justtopost
Not exactly a 'private' craft as I understand it...

Can anyone clarify or fix the title?

