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posted by martyb on Thursday February 21 2019, @06:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the "A-Grand-Day-Out" dept.

Watch the historic first private mission to the Moon launch Thursday night

For the first time later this week, a privately developed moon lander will launch aboard a privately built rocket, organized by a private launch coordinator. It’s an historic moment in space and the Israeli mission stands to make history again if it touches down on the Moon’s surface as planned on April 11.

The Beresheet (“Genesis”) program was originally conceived as an entry into the ambitious but ultimately unsuccessful Google Lunar Xprize in 2010, which challenged people to accomplish a lunar landing, with $30 million in prizes as the incentive. The prize closed last year with no winner, but as these Xprize competitions aim to do, it had already spurred great interest and investment in a private moon mission.

SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries worked together on the mission, which will bring cameras, a magnetometer and a capsule filled with items from the country to, hopefully, a safe rest on the lunar surface.

[...] Russia, China and of course the U.S. are the only ones ever to successfully land on the Moon; China’s Chang’e 4 lander was the first to soft-land (as opposed to impact) the “dark” (though really only far — it’s often light) side and is currently functional.

[...] Seattle’s Spaceflight coordinated the launch, and technically Beresheet is the secondary payload; the primary is the Air Force Research Labs’ S5 experimental satellite, which the launch vehicle will take to geosynchronous orbit after the lunar module detaches.

There is a video on YouTube showing the steps planned to take the craft from Earth orbit to Moon orbit and, hopefully eventually, to the Moon's surface.

You can watch it live-streamed on YouTube starting about 20 minutes before launch:

SpaceX is targeting Thursday, February 21 for launch of the Nusantara Satu satellite from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The 32-minute launch window opens at 8:45 p.m. EST, or 1:45 UTC on February 22. Falcon 9 will also deliver the Beresheet lunar spacecraft and Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) S5 spacecraft to orbit. Deployments will occur at approximately 33 and 44 minutes after liftoff.

A 32-minute backup launch window opens on Friday, February 22 at 8:41 p.m. EST, or 1:41 UTC on February 23.

Falcon 9's first stage for the Nusantara Satu mission previously supported the Iridium-7 mission in July 2018 and the SAOCOM 1A mission in October 2018. Following stage separation, SpaceX will attempt to land Falcon 9's first stage on the "Of Course I Still Love You" droneship, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

Previously: The Moon's Next Visitor


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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday February 21 2019, @08:39PM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 21 2019, @08:39PM (#804699) Journal

    MSFT is a public company, is it not? (grin)

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
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