A private spacecraft from Israel will attempt a moon landing Thursday
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Re: A private spacecraft from Israel will attempt a moon landing Thursday
#2Citing 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] "
Re: A private spacecraft from Israel will attempt a moon landing Thursday
#3I'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?
Re: A private spacecraft from Israel will attempt a moon landing Thursday
#4It'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.
Re: A private spacecraft from Israel will attempt a moon landing Thursday
#5Any word what imaging or video capabilities are on the lander? Would love to see video from the surface in 4K.
Re: A private spacecraft from Israel will attempt a moon landing Thursday
#6unmanned though right?
Re: A private spacecraft from Israel will attempt a moon landing Thursday
#7I 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!
Re: A private spacecraft from Israel will attempt a moon landing Thursday
#8I'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?
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.
Re: A private spacecraft from Israel will attempt a moon landing Thursday
#9unmanned though right?
right, can see more about the lander here if curious https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceIL#Beresheet_lander
Re: A private spacecraft from Israel will attempt a moon landing Thursday
#10Any word what imaging or video capabilities are on the lander? Would love to see video from the surface in 4K.
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.