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[b]World's First Privately Funded Lunar Mission to Launch[/b] [i]Israeli moon lander could herald new era of space exploration[/i] Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) today (Feb. 18) announced that Israel's inaugural voyage to the moon – the world's first privately funded lunar mission – will begin on Feb. 21 at approximately 8:45 p.m. EST, when the lunar lander "Beresheet" ("In the Beginning") blasts off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Once Beresheet completes its lunar mission, Israel would join superpowers China, Russia and the United States in landing a spacecraft on the moon. [i][b]Above[/b]: Beresheet payload (at the top, in gold), the first Israeli lunar spacecraft.[/i] (SSL) About 30 minutes after liftoff, the spacecraft will disengage from the SpaceX Falcon 9 at around 60,000 kilometers above Earth's surface, beginning, under its own power, a two-month voyage to the Moon's surface. Two minutes after it separates from the rocket, Beresheet will communicate for the first time with the mission's control center in Yehud, Israel. Since the establishment of SpaceIL, the task of landing an Israeli spacecraft on the moon has become a national project with educational impact, funded mainly by Morris Kahn, a philanthropist and businessman who took the lead in completing the mission, serving as SpaceIL's president and financing $40 million. Additional donors include Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson — whose $24 million contribution enabled the project to continue — Lynn Schusterman, Steven and Nancy Grand, Sylvan Adams, Sami Sagol and others.
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