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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) 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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