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