11th April, 2019
Israel has failed in its attempted Moon landing as communication with the spacecraft Beresheet has been lost. Some reports said the $100 million spacecraft crashed on the moon surface.
If it had succeeded it will have been the first lunar mission by a non-governmental organisation to Earth’s closest neighbour.
The spacecraft was expected to land on the moon today.
The space probe successfully carried out another manoeuvre around the moon on Monday.
“The manoeuvre, which lasted 36 seconds and burned 6 kilogrammes of fuel, lowered the orbit of the Beresheet to an altitude range of 211 to 467 kilometres,’’ the mission team said.
The Beresheet, which means Genesis in Hebrew, was the smallest spacecraft ever to reach the moon.
Israel would have become the fourth country after the U.S., the Soviet Union and China to make a soft landing on the moon.
The probe, weighing just under 600 kilogrammes and measuring 1.5 metres in height, is to place an Israeli flag on the moon and examine its magnetic field.
Its launch in February was the fruit of an eight-year-long project undertaken by the SpaceIL non-profit organisation and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).
Although the IAI is a governmental organisation, the funds for the mission were largely raised independently.