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posted by janrinok on Monday February 04 2019, @06:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the are-we-bere-yet? dept.

On February 18th, Israeli firm SpaceIL is ready to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida what will become

the first privately funded mission to launch from Earth and land on the moon, and the first spacecraft to propel itself over the lunar surface after landing by "hopping" on its rocket engine to a second landing spot. The mission marks yet another milestone, not only in the history and technical arc of space exploration, but also in how humankind goes about space exploration.

The lander for the mission, dubbed 'Beresheet' which stands for "In the beginning", is

... about the size and shape of a family dinner table, roughly 6 feet in diameter and 4 feet high, weighing (on Earth) about 350 pounds.

The article neglects to mention that a single layer of approximately 462 of the landers would fit within the confines of an Ice Hockey rink.

Carrying instrumentation to measure the magnetic field of the moon, a laser-reflector provided by NASA and a time-capsule of cultural and historical Israeli artifacts, the mission will ride into space as a secondary payload — like a rideshare passenger — aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The primary payload is a communications satellite bound for geostationary orbit (less than 1/10 of the way to the moon). Once dropped off at geostationary orbit by the Falcon 9,

with a small amount of additional energy from its own propulsion system, Beresheet can boost its own orbit by positioning itself so that it's captured by the moon's gravitational pull. This process will take several weeks.

Once landed on the moon, however, the mission may only last a few more days. The lander is not designed for the long haul, but instead will demonstrate advances in technology as well as the business model for a privately funded spacecraft landing on another body in the solar system.

It is always possibile that future moon hikers will come across the lander's various landing spots on the lunar surface. No doubt future moon park rangers will inform them that Beresheet's hop locations can be identified by deposits the lander made which contain small bells and smell like pepper.


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  • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday February 05 2019, @05:59AM (1 child)

    by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Tuesday February 05 2019, @05:59AM (#796510) Homepage Journal

    We live in the Age of Computer. The Age of Digital. Otherwise known as App. Doesn't everybody do the App nowadays? Make the App and pay our wonderful young people $20 a month to run it.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @07:35AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @07:35AM (#796545)

    realDonaldTrump above is referring to the infamous (((facebook))) research app:

    (Not off-topic at all, considering the post being replied to.)

    https://www.dailydot.com/debug/facebook-research-app/ [dailydot.com]

    Since 2016, Facebook has reportedly been paying people ages 13 to 35 a small fee of up to $20 (in gift cards) per month [...]

    Here’s an alarming list of how much data Facebook is harvesting from the app:

    . contents of private messages in social media and chats from instant messaging apps, including photos and videos
    . emails
    . web browsing activity
    . what apps are on your phone and the content in them
    . which apps were used, and how and when (even when the app uses encryption)
    . location history of where the owner had physically been
    . data usage
    . screenshots of their Amazon order history page (that Facebook asks users to take occasionally)