Israel’s Beresheet spacecraft fails to land safely on the moon
The Israeli spacecraft Beresheet did not make the anticipated landing on the moon as planned on Thursday night.
Disappointment set in at the SpaceIL mission center as it became evident that while Beresheet did make it to the moon and won’t be capable to carry out it’s final mission.
As the spacecraft approached the moon, SpaceIL lost contact with Beresheet several times. The scientists kept hope as the connection was restored, but just minutes before the spacecraft was supposed to touch down, contact was lost once again and it crashed on the moon.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was at hand to watch the landing, said that Israel will continue to try landing on the moon. Minutes later Netanyahu took to the microphone again to promise “Israel will land on the moon!”
The country has Beresheet mania.
Tens of thousands of Israelis had stayed up until the wee hours of the morning to watch the lunar lander’s launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Feb. 21 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
This time the hour will be more civilized, with Beresheet expected to touch down in the northeastern part of the Sea of Serenity, a flat area on the moon’s surface, sometime between 10 and 11 p.m. in Israel. A successful landing will make Israel the fourth country — after the Soviet Union, the U.S. and China — to land a spacecraft on the moon.
Read More: The Jerusalem Post