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Israel Will Build Another Lunar Lander

posted by martyb on Monday April 15 2019, @06:50AM   Printer-friendly
from the little-country,-big-dreams dept.

RandomFactor writes:

The team that built the ill fated-Beresheet lander which failed in its landing attempt on Thursday will build another lander.

"We're going to actually build a new halalit — a new spacecraft," billionaire businessman and philanthropist Morris Kahn said in a video statement posted on Twitter by the nonprofit group SpaceIL. "We're going to put it on the moon, and we're going to complete the mission."

The privately-funded Beresheet lander suffered a main engine problem during descent. Although the team was able to get the engine going again, it was too late and Beresheet impacted the surface at 310 mph (500km/h)

The team will still receive a $1 million award from the X Prize Foundation. Apparently this technically qualified as success because:

"I think they managed to touch the surface of the moon, and that's what we were looking for for our Moonshot Award," said X Prize CEO Anousheh Ansari.

Beresheet cost about $100 million in total. 40% of this was funded by Kahn himself.

See also: Israel's Moon probe snaps a final photo before crashing

Previously: Private Spacecraft Failed Moon Landing Today [UPDATED]

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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @07:52AM (8 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @07:52AM (#829728)

    Why is the coverage of this so confused? Is this a private organization or the government?

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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @08:28AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @08:28AM (#829736)

    Zer Jeeewwws.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday April 15 2019, @08:36AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 15 2019, @08:36AM (#829740) Journal

      somebody have seen eth alive lately? Is he well? (grin)

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

  • (Score: 2) by progo on Monday April 15 2019, @12:26PM (1 child)

    by progo (6356) on Monday April 15 2019, @12:26PM (#829774) Homepage

    There is no good reason for the headline to say "Israel" did this and is attempting again.

    Did USA toss a car into solar orbit? No, the PRIVATE company SpaceX did that.

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @01:58PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @01:58PM (#829811)

      On the other hand, it's always Putin himself who does bad, sometimes with help of "Russians". Never mind that most of those "Russians" are Jews - same as Israeli Jews.

  • (Score: 2) by hellcat on Monday April 15 2019, @12:46PM (1 child)

    by hellcat (2832) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 15 2019, @12:46PM (#829782) Homepage

    Not the media's fault. Though private, the government is happy to bask in the publicity. I saw them celebrating during the "landing" even while telemetry was lost.

    Maybe if they'd spent less time on taking selfies...

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @02:05PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @02:05PM (#829816)

      I saw them celebrating during the "landing"

      They were also celebrating when the towers fell. Search for "five dancing israelis", and they too were taking selfies.

  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday April 15 2019, @01:18PM

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Monday April 15 2019, @01:18PM (#829796) Journal

    It's some kind of public-private partnership.

    Beresheet: [wikipedia.org]

    It represented the first privately initiated Moon mission and was stimulated by the Google Lunar X Prize. The Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) participated in the construction and was supported by the Israel Space Agency.

    SpaceIL: [wikipedia.org]

    Its total budget for the mission is estimated at US$95 million, provided by Israeli billionaire Morris Kahn and other philanthropists, as well as the Israel Space Agency (ISA).

    IAI: [wikipedia.org]

    Israel Aerospace Industries (Hebrew: התעשייה האווירית לישראל ha-ta'asiya ha-avirit le-yisra'el) or IAI (תע"א) is Israel's major aerospace and aviation manufacturer, producing aerial and astronautic systems for both military and civilian usage. It has 16,000 employees as of 2013. IAI is wholly owned by the government of Israel.

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  • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Monday April 15 2019, @02:17PM

    by RamiK (1813) on Monday April 15 2019, @02:17PM (#829825)

    Is this a private organization or the government?

    Private... Public... It's a meaningless distinction in such a small nation. Most likely, it's government aided tax evasion scheme for some millionaire where it's structured like a non-profit foundation that the donor puts in a certain amount of money they'd otherwise lose to American tax authorities and in return receives massive tax cuts in their related Israeli businesses and a few contracts they'd otherwise wouldn't win.

    To be fair though, NASA is a pork farm too so it's not like it's new or anything.

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