Israel's Beresheet Spacecraft Crashes Into Moon During Landing Attempt

space.com ^ | 4/12/2019 | Mike Wall

[Monty22002]

Israel's first moon lander came up just short in its historic touchdown bid this afternoon (April 11). The robotic Beresheet spacecraft, built by SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), aimed to become the first Israeli craft, and the first privately funded mission, ever to land softly on the moon. But the little robot couldn't quite make it, crashing into the gray dirt around 3:25 p.m. EDT (1925 GMT). Mission control lost communications with the spacecraft when it was about 489 feet (149 meters) above the moon's surface.

[Monty22002]

Rats, I really hoped they'd make this one.

[9422WMR]

Missed it by that much!

[wastedyears]

That’s not how you’re supposed to do it.

[Cowboy Bob]

Yes. The project was a succes up until the last moment.

[Godebert]

Participation trophy incoming.

[21twelve]

I was surprised how happy they were. Talked about how they made the moon's orbit, much of the descent went well - the lander took a selfie of itself just prior to it losing contact and breaking up.

“We'll be back in three years.”

Oh - it “only” cost them $100 million (about the price on one F35 jet) - most (all?) of it private. And lots of volunteer time.

[Nik Naym]

Does a beresheet in the woods?

[samtheman]

Too bad. I was hoping for a big win for private space travel and a big win for Israel.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Does a beresheet in the woods?

No, but the Pope does.

[captain_dave]

Beresheet (b’ray-sheet), “In The Beginning” (or Genesis). They lost telemetry right at the end as it was landing.

[Freeport]

Except they were several hundred meters above the surface with a failing IMU. If you watch the video, you can hear the call out of the failure and the attitude of the space craft going nuts.

Too bad. Still, for a first attempt, outstanding. Excellent work since most of the GN&C system was single-point-failure designed due to cost. I’m amazed it got that far!

[daniel1212]

Beresheet, the Israeli spacecraft that crashed into the moon during a landing attempt yesterday (April 11), was having problems with its main engine during its descent that left it unable to slow down in time before it smashed into the lunar surface.

"A technical glitch in one of Beresheet's components triggered the chain of events yesterday that caused the main engine of the spacecraft to malfunction," engineers with SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), the teams that built and operated the spacecraft, said in a statement today (April 12).

Engineers at the mission control center in Yehud, Israel, did manage to restart the engine before the crash, but "by that time, its velocity was too high to slow down and the landing could not be completed as planned," SpaceIL officials said in the statement. - https://www.space.com/beresheet-moon-crash-engine-glitch.html