posted 04-04-2019 08:49 AM               

Please use this topic to discuss SpaceIL's missions to land its Beresheet and Beresheet 2 lunar landers on the moon.

posted 04-04-2019 08:55 AM               

"Our landing site is Mare Serenitatis. In English, it is the 'Quiet Sea,'" said [spacecraft program director Yigal] Harel, referring to an area on the moon also known as the Sea of Serenity.

Located adjacent to the Sea of Tranquility where NASA's Apollo 11 mission made the first moon landing by astronauts 50 years ago, Mare Serenitatis is also near the landing sites of the Apollo 17 mission in 1972 and the Soviet Union's Luna 21 robotic mission in 1973.

"We chose this place because it has a magnetic field and we want, as a scientific mission, to measure the magnetic field there," said Harel.

posted 04-04-2019 02:01 PM               

Beresheet is landing at sunrise, when temperatures are not too hot, and not too cold. Those benign conditions won't last for long; as the Sun rises, so will the temperature, which will cook the lander. The cameras are only designed to withstand temperatures up to 90 degrees Celsius in storage or 85 degrees while in use; lunar midday temperatures can top 100 degrees. If Beresheet manages to survive the heat, the lunar night will likely finish it off.

posted 04-08-2019 07:23 PM               

Beresheet lunar landing site revealed

The selection criteria for the selected lunar landing site focused on ensuring a safe landing, searching for sites with relatively few craters, exposed rocks or steep slopes within the landing area that could jeopardize the touchdown.

The main scientific instrument on board the Israeli Beresheet spacecraft, the SpaceIL Magnetometer (SILMAG), has now been successfully turned on in space and data returned to Earth. After its successful launch, Beresheet is circling Earth on its journey to the Moon. Prof. Oded Aharonson of the Weizmann Institute of Science is heading the team that is currently analyzing the SILMAG information to evaluate the health and accuracy of the instrument in space, as well as recording the magnetic signature of the spacecraft itself, which will then be subtracted from the measurements made on the Moon.

Measuring the magnetism of lunar rocks will enable researchers to address outstanding questions about the Moon: how it acquired its magnetic field, and when in its history this occurred.

Aharonson and his team of scientists, working with the SpaceIL engineers, have identified a landing site for the Beresheet lander. The selection criteria focused on ensuring a safe landing, searching for sites with relatively few craters, exposed rocks or steep slopes within the landing area that could jeopardize the touchdown. In addition, the scientists searched for a location on the Moon where the crust is magnetic, so as to allow the magnetometer on board the spacecraft to carry out its investigation.

The landing site was selected together with Prof. Jim Head of Brown University​, a member of the SpaceIL team who worked with the NASA Apollo program on landing site selection, among other things. "On the basis of our experience with Apollo, the Serenitatis sites favor both landing safety and scientific reward," he said.

The chosen site is located in the northeastern part of Mare Serenitatis, a few hundreds of km east of the Apollo 15 landing site and a similar distance northwest of the Apollo 17 site. Three optional landing sites (primary and two backups) were identified. The terrain in these locations is composed of material characteristic of ancient mare surfaces on which successful landings have been made (most recently Chang'E 3 and 4). "Lunar magnetism has been an enigma for decades. It is a privilege to be part of this mission that's taking one more step towards solving it," said Aharonson.

The Beresheet spacecraft is currently orbiting Earth and performing maneuvers in preparation for lunar orbit insertion in early April, followed by the planned landing at the chosen site.

posted 04-11-2019 02:35 PM            

A brave attempt, and it was looking so good, but when that descent-rate started climbing into the red-zone, it was all over.

posted 04-12-2019 12:06 PM            

Condolences to the Beresheet lander team a SpaceIL for what almost was! Communications were lost with the spacecraft just 150 meters (!!!) above the surface, and it couldn't quite stick the landing. Never lose hope - your hard work, teamwork, and innovation is inspiring to all!

posted 04-13-2019 02:46 PM               

SpaceIL chairman Morris Kahn has announced that the team will try again.

The dream goes on! Morris Kahn just announced the launching of Beresheet 2.0.

A NASA piggyback experiment may have survived the April 11 crash landing of Israel's Moon lander, Beresheet. Overflight of the crash site by the space agency's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) should provide imagery of the impact area.

Additionally, an LRO-carried Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) will attempt to detect a NASA-provided laser retro-reflector array in the Beresheet wreckage zone. Called the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/MIT Laser Retro-reflector Array (LRA) for Lunar Landers, the ball-shaped device was located on the top side of the Israeli lander.

posted 04-16-2019 06:16 PM               

"Rookie Moonshot: Budget Mission to the Moon" is the remarkable story of a small company with a huge dream — to become the first to land a privately funded unmanned vehicle on the moon. The 60-minute special follows the Israeli nonprofit organization SpaceIL as it attempts to land its spacecraft, Beresheet, on the lunar surface.

Despite the company's best efforts, the spacecraft suffers a software glitch and crashes just hundreds of feet from the lunar surface. Although SpaceIL doesn't accomplish its monumental goal, it does make Israel one of only seven countries to orbit the moon.

The film features exclusive behind-the-scenes access to mission control; Beresheet’s risky landing attempt; and interviews with SpaceIL’s founders, engineers and space experts to give key insights into the ambitious mission.

posted 05-15-2019 10:13 AM               

Beresheet Crash Site Spotted!

SpaceIL, an Israeli non-profit organization, is dedicated to landing the first Israeli spacecraft on the Moon. Beresheet was their first attempt at meeting this goal. While the spacecraft did land, it first touched the surface about 1000 meters per second faster than intended. The mishap occurred late in the descent profile when the main engine failed – resulting in a very low-angle (<10 degrees), high-speed impact.

The Beresheet impact occurred on 11 April 2019 and LRO passed overhead 11 days later, allowing LROC to acquire a six-image (three NAC left-right pairs) sequence of the search area. The coordinates of the darkest pixel (lowest reflectance) of the central "smudge" are 32.5956 deg N, 19.3496 deg E, with a 20-m (latitude) by 8-m (longitude) 95% confidence interval, estimated from seven images acquired before the impact event (over the course of the LRO mission). The elevation is about 2613 meters, and although the uncertainty is not well constrained at this time, it is likely less than 10 meters.

Temporal ratio images enhance changes to the surface revealing subtle ejecta patterns. The point of impact is marked by a dark smudge about 10 meters across, where the surface reflectance was lowered by about 10 percent. At the scale of the NAC image we cannot detect a crater; perhaps there is one but it is simply too small to be seen, or the low angle of impact (less than ten degrees relative to the surface), the fragility of the spacecraft, and the velocity precluded crater formation (think gouge rather than crater). The smudge is likely a roughened surface (more micro-shadows) due to the impact and disintegration of the lander.

Above: Left: Beresheet crash site. Right: Ratio of after/before images enhancing subtle changes to brightness of the surface, scale bar is 100 meters, north is up, both panels are 490 meters wide.

Surrounding the smudge is an area of increased reflectance (up to 20 percent higher). This ragged zone spans 30 to 50 meters from the smudge and includes a ray that extends southward about 100 meters. The higher reflectance was likely caused by gases or very fine high-speed particles rapidly moving away from the impact site, which smoothed the upper layer of regolith and redistributed fine soil particles, which in turn increased reflectance.

While not a successful soft landing, the Beresheet impact provides another example of small impact events; the crash site can be compared to the two GRAIL and LADEE spacecraft that impacted the Moon in 2012 and 2014, respectively. The study of these impacts is giving us new insights into how the lunar regolith (soil) evolves over time.

Despite the mishap, it is important to remember that Beresheet was the first spacecraft developed and flown by a non-profit entity to orbit the Moon. And SpaceIL has announced they will be trying again, with Beresheet 2!

posted 06-25-2019 06:07 PM            

This time, we will not go to the moon. Beresheet's journey to the Moon was already received as a successful, record-breaking journey. Instead we will seek out another, significant objective for Beresheet 2.0. More details to follow...

posted 08-05-2019 06:30 PM               

But when the Israelis confirmed Beresheet had been destroyed, [Arch Mission founder Nova] Spivack was faced with a distressing question: Did he just smear the toughest animal in the known universe across the surface of the moon?

In the weeks following the Beresheet crash, Spivack pulled together the Arch Mission Foundation’s advisors in an attempt to determine whether the lunar library had survived the crash. Based on their analysis of the spacecraft’s trajectory and the composition of the lunar library, Spivack says he is quite confident that the library — a roughly DVD-sized object made of thin sheets of nickel — survived the crash mostly or entirely intact. In fact, the decision to include DNA samples and tardigrades in the lunar library may have been key to its survival.

posted 10-23-2019 01:38 PM               

But despite the hard landing, Israel has no intent to stop chasing the moon, Hayun said. (Shortly after the crash, the SpaceIL organization behind the mission suggested it would target a different destination than the moon; it's unclear what will happen on that front.) The team behind Beresheet has mostly stayed on, he said during his presentation, and they intend to fly a new version of the lander within two or 2.5 years.

The successor spacecraft would include some design tweaks meant to increase the mission's odds of landing softly. New versions will carry upgraded computers and, unlike the original Beresheet spacecraft, will be armed with an obstacle-avoidance system for landing. But Israel's future landers will still be compact and still work with rideshare launches, Hayun said.

posted 12-07-2020 04:41 PM               

Ready to get excited again?

Back to the Moon. 9.12.20.

posted 12-09-2020 08:36 AM               

We are proud to announce that Beresheet 2 is going to head to the Moon in the first half of 2024! It will include two landers, each of which will carry out experiments on the surface of the Moon, and an orbiter that will stay for several years.