Beresheet

Beresheet was co-developed by SpaceIL – a non-profit organization headed by Morris Kahn, its major financier – and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). It represented the first privately initiated Moon mission and was stimulated by the Google Lunar X Prize.[15] IAI constructed the vehicle[16][3] and was supported by the Israel Space Agency.[17] The time window for participation in the Lunar X Prize closed before the launch. After the mission, Lunar X Prize awarded a US$1 million award to SpaceIL to support a second mission.[18]

The costs for the project, including launch, were about US$100 million.[19] The government of Israel's commitment to the project was stated to be 10% in July 2018.[20] However, in 2019 just before the launch, SpaceIL told media that the overall budget was about $90 million, and only about $2 million of that came from the Israeli government.[21]

The spacecraft carried a digital "time capsule" containing over 30 million pages of data, including a full copy of the English-language Wikipedia, the Wearable Rosetta disc, the PanLex database, the Torah, children's drawings, a children's book inspired by the space launch, memoirs of a Holocaust survivor, Israel's national anthem ("Hatikvah"), the Israeli flag, and a copy of the Israeli Declaration of Independence.[22][23][24][5][25] At the last minute, genetic samples and tardigrades were added in epoxy resin between the digital layers.[26]

Its scientific payload included a magnetometer supplied by the Israeli Weizmann Institute of Science to measure the local magnetic field, and a laser retroreflector array supplied by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to enable precise measurements of the Earth–Moon distance.[27][28]

The spacecraft propulsion system was designed and built by Israel Aerospace Industries, based on monomethylhydrazine (MMH) fuel and mixed oxides of nitrogen (MON) oxidizer. It featured nine engines, the main engine was the LEROS 2b liquid-propellant, restartable rocket engine which was used to reach lunar orbit, as well as for deceleration of the spacecraft, destructive lithobraking, and an attempted propulsive landing.[29][30]

Trajectory on a silver medal of the 2019 International Physics Olympiad.

In October 2015, SpaceIL signed a contract for a launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida on a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster, via Spaceflight Industries.[20][31] It was launched on 22 February 2019 at 0145 UTC (20:45 local time on 21 February) as a secondary payload,[5][32][33] along with the telecom satellite PSN-6.[34] Beresheet was controlled by a command center in Yehud, Israel.[35]

From 24 February to 19 March, the main engine was used four times to raise the orbit, putting its apogee close to the Moon's orbital distance.[36] The spacecraft performed maneuvers so as to be successfully captured into an elliptical lunar orbit on 4 April 2019, and adjusted its flight pattern in a circular orbit around the Moon. Once it was in the correct circular orbit, it was planned to decelerate for a soft landing on the lunar surface. This was planned for 11 April 2019.[37]

The planned landing site was in the north part of the Mare Serenitatis,[8] and the landing zone was about 15 km (9.3 mi) in diameter.[38]

Beresheet was planned to operate for an estimated two days on the lunar surface,[20] as it had no thermal control and was expected to quickly overheat.[39] However, its laser retroreflector was a passive device requiring no electrical power and was expected to be functional for several decades.[40]

The spacecraft was planned to have a short lifespan of about two days. Its main mission would have been to gather imagery and send it back to Earth. Additionally, the craft would have made magnetic measurements. It was also planned to reignite its main engine and perform a "hop" to another place in the Moon's surface, demonstrating relocation capability in its Moon exploration.[21]

The retroreflector onboard Beresheet was a passive device and would have continued to be usable to laser ranging measurements for decades after the spacecraft's active life ended.

Crash site of Beresheet as seen by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

On 11 April 2019, the lander crash-landed on the lunar surface. An Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU2) gyroscope failed during the braking procedure on approach to the landing site, and the ground control crew was unable to reset the individual component due to a sudden loss of communications with the control network.[41] By the time communications were restored, the craft's main engine had already been inactive for an extended period. The engine was brought back online following a system-wide reset; however, the craft had already lost too much altitude to slow its descent sufficiently. The final telemetry reading indicated that at an altitude of 150 metres (490 ft) the craft was still traveling over 500 km/hour (139 m/s), resulting in a total loss on impact with the lunar surface.[42][43] Prior to impact, the probe had been able to take two last photographs: a view of itself against the Moon, and a closer shot of the Moon's surface.[44]

The lander's final resting position is 32.5956°N, 19.3496°E,[10] portrayed in the following LROC images:[45]

• M1236487095L (before impact)
• M1098722768L (before impact - 2012-08-04 - 12:31:41, line 24245, sample 4031)[46]
• M1101080642R (before impact - 2012-08-31 - 19:29:35, line 14398, sample 1424)[47]
• M1310536929R (after impact)

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) overflew the area where Beresheet's telemetry ended, and took photos of the surface. When those photos were compared against earlier photos of the same location, one set of new features was obvious. A faint lighter line leads to a lighter halo surrounding a dark crater. A lump is visible at the head of the crater opposite the line. The light halo may either be gas associated with the craft's wreckage or fine soil particles blown outward by the impact.[48] A small NASA payload known as the Lunar Retroflector Array (LRA) is hoped to have survived the crash but may have separated from the remaining wreckage. The Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) instrument on the LRO is pulsing laser images at the crash site in hopes of finding the LRA.[49]

In August 2019, scientists reported that a capsule containing tardigrade micro-animals in their natural cryptobiotic state may have survived the crash and lived on the Moon for a while. On previous space missions, tardigrades were exposed to the open vacuum of space and some were able to live for a period of time.[50][51] But there is no real danger they will spread across the Moon.[50]

Originally Beresheet was planned to be a one-time-only mission.[21][3] However, on 13 April 2019, Morris Kahn announced that a new mission, named Beresheet 2 would attempt a second time to land on the Moon.[52] But on 26 June 2019, SpaceIL announced that the mission will not target the Moon, and instead it will be to another, undisclosed object.[53][54]

IAI owns the intellectual property of the Beresheet design.[55] On 9 June 2019 it was announced that IAI signed an agreement with the American company Firefly Aerospace to build a lunar lander based on Beresheet.[55] Firefly Aerospace is one of several 'main contractors' for NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS), and they plan to propose a lunar lander based on Beresheet that will be called Genesis.[55][56] Genesis would be launched on another vehicle Firefly plans to build, called Beta.[56]

• List of artificial objects on the Moon

• Media related to Beresheet Moon Probe at Wikimedia Commons
• Official website
• From Plutarch to Beresheet: a Short History of Lunar Exploration