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Raumfahrt - Israeli spacecraft world’s first commercial Moon mission Beresheet crashed just before its target - the lunar surface. -Update-4

11.04.2019

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Don’t stop believing! We came close but unfortunately didn’t succeed with the landing process. More updates to follow.

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Quelle: SpaceIL

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RAUMSONDE „BERESHEET“ STÜRZT KURZ VOR ZIEL AB

Israels erste Mondlandung gescheitert

 

Es hat nicht geklappt!

Die israelische Raumsonde „Beresheet“ ist kurz vor ihrem Ziel – der Mondoberfläche – abgestürzt und zerschellt.

Israel sei jedoch das siebte Land der Welt, dem es gelungen sei, in die Umlaufbahn des Mondes zu gelangen.

Nach Angaben von SpaceIL war der wichtigste Motor der Raumsonde „Beresheet“ beim Landemanöver ausgefallen. Die Kommunikation mit der Sonde ging verloren.

Der israelische Ministerpräsident Benjamin Netanjahu sagte, er hoffe auf einen neuen Versuch binnen zwei bis drei Jahren.

 

Die Sonde war seit sieben Wochen unterwegs gewesen und kreiste seit knapp einer Woche um den Erdtrabanten. „Beresheet“ hatte schon mehrere wichtige Manöver geschafft. Dann das tragische Ende etwa elf Kilometer vor der Mondoberfläche. Im Live-Stream der Nasa sah man, wie der Datenstrom auf dem Überwachungsmonitor plötzlich abriss und die Wissenschaftler im Kontrollzentrum fassungslos die Hände vor ihre Gesichter schlugen.

 

 

Es war das erste Mal, dass Israel eine Raumsonde zum Mond geschickt hatte. Die 585 Kilogramm schwere und eineinhalb Meter hohe Sonde war am 22. Februar vom US-Raumfahrtbahnhof Cape Canaveral gestartet, um das Magnetfeld des Erdtrabanten zu untersuchen. Sie wurde von einer Falcon-9-Rakete des Raumfahrtunternehmens SpaceX von Tesla-Chef Elon Musk befördert. Danach wurde sie von der Rakete abgekoppelt und in die Umlaufbahn der Erde gesetzt. Hinter dem Projekt steht die israelische Nonprofit-Organisation SpaceIL.

 

 

An Bord der israelischen Sonde befand sich eine Zeitkapsel, die eine Reihe digitaler Dateien enthält: gemalte Bilder von Kindern, die Erinnerungen eines Holocaust-Überlebenden und eine israelische Flagge. Die Sonde ist nach dem ersten Buch Mose, der Genesis, benannt. „BeReschit“ heißt übersetzt „Am Anfang“. Einen wissenschaftliche Zweck hatte die Mission auch: Sie sollte die Magnetfelder des Mondes messen.

Quelle: Bild

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Update: 12.04.2019

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Israeli Lunar Spacecraft Loses Main Engine, Crashes on Surface of the Moon

Until now, only global superpowers have been able to successfully land an object on the moon. Beresheet's voyage is expected to be the vanguard for several other spacecrafts built by the private sector

The Israeli moon lander Beresheet on Thursday failed to be the first spacecraft built by the private sector to safely land on the moon. After entering orbit, the spacecraft lost its main engine and went into...

Quelle: HAARETZ

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SpaceIL's Beresheet spacecraft crashes after engine issues

April 11 (UPI) -- Beresheet made history as the first privately funded spacecraft to orbit the moon, but failed to stick the landing Thursday afternoon after experiencing engine issues during its descent.

"#Beresheet's main engine fail! Spacecraft failed landing. Appeared to have crashed on the moon's surface!" the Israel Space Agency tweeted.

A combination of engine and communications errors resulted in a crash landing.

Last week, Beresheet executed the engine burn needed to put itself into orbit around the moon. After a further series of burns on Wednesday, the craft prepared to begin its landing sequence just after 3 p.m. ET on Thursday, but a series of issues with communications, telemetry and engine function prevented it from successfully landing on the moon.

The landing was expected to be somewhere inside the moon's Mare Serenitatis, or Sea of Serenity. Once on the surface, the lander was to traverse the sea's surface, taking pictures of its surroundings.

Beresheet was designed and built by SpaceIL, a privately funded nonprofit based in Israel. The team of scientists and engineers began working on the project in 2011 as part of the Google Lunar X-Prize competition.

When Google folded the contest, SpaceIL decided to continue on. Last week, the XPrize Foundation announced it would award SpaceIL $1 million if Beresheet sticks the landing on Thursday.

On Wednesday night, the spacecraft shifted into a more elliptical orbit in preparation for its moon landing.

"We are ready for landing!" SpaceIL announced on Twitter.

But the British-built engine that helped take Beresheet from Earth to the moon failed to properly slow the spacecraft during its final descent.

"We've never used an engine in this kind of application before," Rob Westcott, senior propulsion engineer at Nammo, which built Beresheet's engine, told the BBC. "The big challenge is the fact that the engine is going to have to be switched on and get very hot, then switched off for a short period of time when all that heat is remaining in its thermal mass, and then fired up again, very accurately and very precisely such that it slows the craft down and lands very softly on the surface on the moon."

As an Israeli-based mission, Beresheet was attempting to make Israel the fourth country in history to put a spacecraft on the moon. China, Russia and the United States are the only other countries to successfully land a spacecraft on the lunar surface.

 Quelle: UPI
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Buzz Aldrin to ‘inspiring’ Beresheet team after moon crash: ‘Never lose hope’

Second man to walk on moon sends his condolences to Israeli team; LunarX says will award SpaceIL $1 million prize for achievements despite vehicle crashing during landing attempt

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The last shot Beresheet sent of landing before crashing onto the moon's surface. (Youtube screenshot)

Former astronaut and second man on the moon Buzz Aldrin on Thursday tweeted his condolences to the team behind the Beresheet spacecraft which crashed into the moon’s surface during its landing attempt on Thursday evening, saying the project was “inspiring.”

“Condolences to the Beresheet lander @TeamSpaceIL for what almost was! Communications were lost with the spacecraft just 150 meters (!!!) above the surface, and it couldn’t quite stick the landing. Never lose hope – your hard work, team work, and innovation is inspiring to all!” tweeted Aldrin, who was a member of the US Apollo 11 mission to the moon in 1969.

Israel could still claim the title of seventh country to make lunar orbit, and the fourth country to reach the lunar surface, though unfortunately not in one piece.

“As far as we can see, we were very close to the moon,” operation control director Alex Friedman said to engineers in the SpaceIL control room in Yehud, east of Tel Aviv, after communication with the spacecraft went down. “We are on the moon, but not in the way that we wanted to be.”

In this Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2015, file photo, Buzz Aldrin, former NASA Astronaut and Apollo 11 Pilot, prepares to testify on Capitol Hill in Washington, before the Senate subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness hearing on human exploration goals and commercial space competitiveness. (AP/Susan Walsh)

The project launched as Israel’s entry into the Google LunarX challenge for nongovernmental groups to land a spacecraft on the moon. Google ended the contest in 2018 with no winners, but the Israeli team decided to continue its efforts privately.

LunarX announced Friday that it would award the Israeli team a $1 million moonshot XPrize in honor of their achievements.

“We’re extraordinarily proud they made it this far,” said Peter Diamandis, XPrize founder.

The head of NASA, Jim Bridenstine, said he regretted the mission didn’t succeed, but said he had “no doubt that Israel and SpaceIL will continue to explore and I look forward to celebrating their future achievements.”

President Reuven Rivlin hosted dozens of youngsters at his official residence, one of several celebrations scheduled across the country.

“We are full of admiration for the wonderful people who brought the spacecraft to the moon,” Rivlin said. “True, not as we had hoped, but we will succeed eventually.”

President Reuven Rivlin speaks to the crowd after the Beresheet spacecraft attempted to land on the moon, Jerusalem, April 11, 2018 (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

The spacecraft successfully initiated the landing sequence, but a few kilometers above the moon’s surface the main engine failed, meaning the spacecraft could not properly brake in time to cushion its landing.

“Write this down: In three years we will get another spacecraft on the moon, and this one will land in one piece,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“If at first you don’t succeed, try again. We’ll try again, and next time we’ll just try it more gently.”

Phil Larson of the University of Colorado, who was a space adviser in the Obama White House, said the Israeli effort underlines that “space is still extremely hard, and landing human-made objects on other worlds is an utmost challenge.”

But, he added, “While it failed to land successfully, overall it was a path-breaking and innovative project.”

The spacecraft was budgeted at $100 million (NIS 370 million), a fraction of the cost of vehicles launched to the moon by major powers US, Russia and China in the past. It was a joint venture between private companies SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries, funded almost entirely by private donations from well-known Jewish philanthropists, including South African billionaire Morris Kahn, Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, Lynn Schusterman, and others.

“Space is hard,” said Ehud Hayun, a space systems engineer at Israel Aerospace Industries. “I’m not crushed, I’m disappointed, but I’m very proud of what we achieved. We had a lot of success along the way, until the hard landing. We knew it was a risky mission, and the risk we were taking to build it cheap and fast. But we tried.”

SpaceIL co-founder Yariv Bash said it would take about two or three years to get another prototype ready for a moon landing. Netanyahu asked philanthropist Kahn to fund it again, though Kahn expressed hope that a second run would cost a little less.

Opher Doron, the general manager of the Space Division at Israel Aerospace Industries, said engineers were still studying the problem that led to the crash. Current thinking is that there was a failure with one of the telemetry (altitude) measurement units, which caused a chain of events culminating in the main engine cutting out about 10 kilometers (6 miles) above the moon’s surface. Without the main engine, the spacecraft could not properly brake in time to make a gentle landing, rather crashing onto the surface.

The three SpaceIL co-founders, who initially decided to participate in the GoogleX Lunar Prize contest some eight years ago, said they would continue their mission of space education and encouraging children to enter science fields.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with engineers and SpaceIL founders in the Yehud control room, vowed to try again for the moon after the Beresheet spacecraft crashed on April 11, 2019. (courtesy)

“I want to turn to kids that might be watching us,” Yonatan Winetraub said in a press conference after the crash. “We didn’t reach the moon in one piece. That sucks. However, engineering and science are hard. Sometimes it doesn’t work the first time, sometimes it doesn’t work the second or third time. But it will work.”

“I want to encourage you to continue studying these things so you can one day reach the moon, and the stars,” he added.

“This is not what we were hoping for, but I think in the last few years we made history,” said Kfir Damari.

“We got Israel to places we couldn’t have imagined before. It was a long journey. We got Israel to the moon, together, this whole team. Now it’s the kids’ job to continue to build future spacecraft to reach the moon.”

“This is what happens, this is space,” said Morris Kahn. “Space has its dangers, it’s a frontier that’s very difficult. We accepted the challenge. I’m glad we did it. We chose to dream, we chose to do, and we were not afraid.”

“We are still the seventh country to get to the moon,” said Winetraub. “And that is still pretty incredible.”

Quelle: The Times of Israel

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We have not managed to land successfully’: Israel's moonshot fails

Spacecraft crashes in to lunar surface after engine and communications breakdown

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A picture of the moon’s surface taken by Israel’s Beresheet spacecraft as it approaches. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

An Israeli spacecraft has crashed into the lunar surface, ending the first privately funded attempt to land on the moon.

About the size of a washing machine, the 585kg (1,290lb) robotic lander experienced an engine and communication failure in the last seconds of touchdown.

The mission ended Israel’s hopes of joining the ranks of Russia, the US and China as the only countries to have made controlled landings on Earth’s nearest neighbour.

“We had a failure in the spacecraft. We unfortunately have not managed to land successfully,” said Opher Doron, the general manager of IsraelAerospace Industries’ space division.

“It’s a tremendous achievement up to now,” he added, saying the probe had already made Israel the seventh country to orbit the moon and the fourth to reach the lunar surface.

Named Beresheet, the Hebrew word for genesis, the four-legged craft had intended to measure magnetic fields from its landing site on a lunar plain called Mare Serenitatis, the Sea of Serenity.

Its frame held a time capsule of digital files the size of coins containing the Torah, children’s drawings, dictionaries in 27 languages, Israeli songs, as well as memories of a Holocaust survivor.

Beresheet was launched in February aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, one of SpaceX’s private fleets run by the billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.

While crewed lunar trips have taken around three days, the probe took a much more circuitous route for its four million-mile (6.5m km) journey. It has spent 47 days, gradually making ever-widening elliptical orbits around the Earth until it was “captured” by the moon’s gravitational pull and looped closer to its surface.

On Wednesday, the lander made a manoeuvre to lower its altitude for a lunar orbit of between nine and 124 miles while preparing for the landing. It managed to take a photo of the moon minutes before communication was lost.

Funded almost entirely by donations, Beresheet was built by SpaceIL, an Israeli non-profit set up for the mission, in partnership with the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries. It cost about £70m, a fraction of the cost of previous state-led missions.

Morris Kahn, a South African-born Israeli billionaire, is the main backer but the US Republican party and pro-Israel funder Miriam Adelson and her casino-owning husband, Sheldon, also gave $24m.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was at mission control, said: “If at first you don’t succeed, try again.”

US and European space agencies intend to use an expanding commercial space industry to send people back to the moon. A Nasa-led plan is already underway to build a small crewed space station orbiting the moon, and the private sector has been tasked with helping to build it.

Russia was the first country to make a soft landing, rather than a plummeting crash, on the surface of the moon in 1966. Following the end of the space race in the 1970s, there was no return until China sent a lander in 2013. In January this year, Beijing made history by landing a spacecraft on the far side of the moon.

Quelle: The Guardian

 

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