A Time Capsule Aboard Astrobotic's Peregrine Lander is Ready to Head to the Moon...

Arch Mission Foundation / Nova Spivack

Arch Mission Foundation Prepares Lunar Library II for December 2023 Launch (Press Release)

The second Lunar Library™ will put additional civilizational archives on the Moon with Astrobotic's first lunar mission.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The Arch Mission Foundation announced today that its second installment of the historic Lunar Library will launch to the Moon's surface later this year aboard Astrobotic's Peregrine Lander. The launch is currently scheduled for December 24, 2023 from Cape Canaveral's Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41).

The Lunar Library is capable of lasting for up to billions of years on the Moon, and this is the second installment, expanding upon the first Lunar Library launched aboard Israel's Beresheet Lander in 2019. The Lunar Library is an instance of The Billion Year Archive initiative, which aims to build a solar-system-wide library system that can preserve, connect and share humanity's knowledge for billions of years.

The second Lunar Library archives over 60 million pages, including foundational components like the Wikipedia, collections from Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive and the Long Now Foundation's Rosetta Project and PanLex datasets, which provide a linguistic key to 5000 languages with 1.5 billion cross-language translations. Additionally, the new Lunar Library will include archives of music and film.

The library also features the "Aldrin Archive" in partnership with the Aldrin Family Foundation, which includes images from the Apollo 11 mission as well as space-themed STEAM projects from K-12 Students.

Additional content partners for the Lunar Library II include the SETI Institute's The Earthling Project, CATALOG, Memory of Mankind, LifeShip, the Great Pause Project, the Molecular Information Systems Lab at the University of Washington, and more.

"We're thrilled to be launching the Lunar Library for our second attempt to land it on the Moon, this time with our partners at Astrobotic," said Arch Mission Foundation Co-founder & Chairman Nova Spivack. "After we land the Lunar Library on the Moon, we can guarantee, for the first time in human history, that humanity's heritage will be safely preserved, no matter what happens on Earth."

Astrobotic will carry the Lunar Library II to the Moon on its Peregrine Lunar Lander and store it on the lunar surface. Astrobotic's inaugural lunar mission will also include a manifest of payloads from NASA, companies, universities, nonprofits and individuals.

The Lunar Library is being deployed to deliver extremely long-duration archives containing curated collections of public and private libraries and other time-capsules to the Moon. The Library will continue to be regularly updated with additional installments to various destinations around the surface of the Moon, across a series of lunar landings by a variety of commercial entities, nonprofit organizations and governments.

"We have a moral obligation as a species to provide a backup of human civilization so that our knowledge, wisdom and culture will exist far beyond us," says Matthew Hoerl, Arch Mission Co-founder and Executive Director. "The Arch Mission is dedicated to preserving humanity's heritage for future generations and civilizations to discover. The Billion Year Archive is an ambitious project, but we now have the technology and capabilities to achieve this long-term preservation of our unique human record no matter what our future may hold."

A duplicate disc of the Lunar Library II will be donated to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, where the public will be able to see it displayed alongside other vital artifacts related to the human future in space.

The Lunar Library II consists of top layers consisting of tens of thousands of pages of text and images stored as analog NanoFiche images on thin sheets of nickel. Each page is etched by laser using patented technology provided to the Arch Mission Foundation by Stamper Technology.

In addition to the analog etchings, the library also includes 60 million pages of digital data etched into nickel as well.

"Durability is the foundation of the Arch Libraries, and the licensed NanoFiche technology provides a material base for the archives that can last for billions of years, even under the harshest environmental conditions," said Bruce Ha, the Arch Mission Foundation's Chief Scientist. "Nickel is impervious to radiation as well as the changing temperatures on the Moon, and can last for billions of years in space. The analog content of the Library can easily be read via a 100x magnification optical microscope, without needing a computer, so that it is accessible with even the most rudimentary tools."

In addition to the nickel NanoFiche technology, the Lunar Library II also utilizes other storage technologies, including data stored in molecular form using new DNA storage technology.

"In 2018, we identified Astrobotic as a key partner for the Arch Mission and one that was most likely to succeed in delivering a commercial lander to the lunar surface," says Robert Jacobson, Arch Mission Operations Lead and author of the book Space Is Open for Business. "The commercial space industry is still nascent, similar to the early days of the internet. Astrobotic is providing critical infrastructure so groups like ours can leverage with new applications. We commend the team at Astrobotic for their important work to send the first lunar lander from the United States since the Apollo missions."

The Lunar Library II follows the Arch Mission's initial Lunar Library launch in 2019, and the first Solar Library, launched aboard SpaceX's first Falcon Heavy flight earlier in 2018. In 2021, the Arch Mission Foundation's first terrestrial Earth Archive, the Lava Library, was placed in the lava tubes of Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano by the Valoria I mission crew of HI-SEAS during a Mars simulation mission.

Source: PRWeb.com

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Arch Mission Foundation / Nova Spivack

Hey @archmission, have you thought about reaching out to @NASA and @JHUAPL about placing a library on the #DragonflyMission to Saturn's moon Titan? https://t.co/ai3fe9iCGb

— Rich Par (@AstroPnoy) November 9, 2023

Beresheet 2 Is Unveiled!

SpaceIL

Earlier today, Israeli officials announced that another privately-made lander—once again built by SpaceIL—will head to the Moon in 2024! Known as Beresheet 2, this mission would actually consist of two landers plus an orbiter...and cost around $100 million like the first Beresheet spacecraft. All I can say is, I am absolutely excited for this project! I was so disappointed after Beresheet was unable to stick the landing in April of last year, but was glad when the folks at SpaceIL announced that they would try again a few days later.

Godspeed, Beresheet 2! Your launch can't arrive soon enough.


Haim Zach / GPO

The Final Resting Place for Israel's First Moon Lander Is Spotted from Lunar Orbit...

NASA / GSFC / Arizona State University

Beresheet Impact Site Spotted (News Release)

The photo above shows the landing site of the Israeli Beresheet spacecraft on a region of the Moon called Sea of Serenity, or Mare Serenitatis in Latin. On April 11, 2019, SpaceIL, a non-profit organization, attempted to land its spacecraft in this ancient volcanic field on the nearside of the Moon. After a smooth initial descent, Beresheet made a hard landing on the surface.

As soon as its orbit placed NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) over the landing site on April 22, 2019, LRO imaged Beresheet’s impact site. The LRO Camera (LROC) consists of three imagers: a seven-color Wide Angle Camera (WAC) and two black-and-white Narrow Angle Cameras (NAC) mounted on the LRO, which has been studying the Moon from orbit for a decade. NAC captured the Beresheet impact photo.


NASA / GSFC / Arizona State University

LROC took this image from 56 miles (90 kilometers) above the surface. The cameras captured a dark smudge, about 10 meters wide, that indicates the point of impact. The dark tone suggests a surface roughened by the hard landing, which is less reflective than a clean, smooth surface.

From so far away, LROC could not detect whether Beresheet formed a surface crater upon impact. It’s possible the crater is just too small to show up in photos. Another possibility is that Beresheet formed a small indent instead of a crater, given its low angle of approach (around 8.4 degrees relative to the surface), light mass (compared to a dense meteoroid of the same size), and low velocity (again, relative to a meteoroid of the same size; Beresheet’s speed was still faster than most speeding bullets).

The light halo around the smudge could have formed from gas associated with the impact or from fine soil particles blown outward during Beresheet’s descent, which smoothed out the soil around the landing site, making it highly reflective.

There are many clues that we’re actually looking at a man-made crater instead of a meteoroid-caused one. This is an important consideration, since the Moon, having no atmosphere, is constantly bombarded by space rocks that leave craters.

Most importantly, we knew the coordinates of the landing site within a few miles thanks to radio tracking of Beresheet, and we have 11 “before” images of the area, spanning a decade, and three “after” images. In all of these images, including one taken 16 days before the landing, we saw only one new feature of the size Beresheet would have created.

Existing mathematical models helped us estimate the size and shape of the crater that would have formed if an object of Beresheet’s mass and velocity struck the surface. We also referenced craters created by similar-size spacecraft (GRAIL, LADEE, Ranger) that have struck the Moon at about the same speed, and we saw that the white tail stretching from the landing halo towards the south is a shape that’s consistent with Beresheet’s southward descent trajectory and angle of approach.

For the before image below, we used a photo from December 16, 2016. This is because the lighting conditions that day, based on the angle at which the Sun would have illuminated the Moon at that particular time in its orbit, were the most similar to the April 22 image. Because LRO was beyond the horizon during Beresheet’s descent and landing, it couldn’t capture a photo until its orbit brought it nearby 11 days later. LRO passes over the lunar poles with each revolution. Meanwhile, the Moon rotates on its axis below the spacecraft, allowing LRO to pass over every part of the Moon twice a month (once during lunar night and once during lunar day). LROC may take more images of the landing site when it passes the same area again on May 19.

Efforts are ongoing to bounce laser pulses from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter, also on board LRO, to measure the return from the Laser Retroreflector Array of small corner cube mirrors. This instrument was provided by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and was installed on the top deck of the Beresheet spacecraft. Attempts are ongoing to examine if the retroreflector may have survived the impact.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / GSFC / Arizona State University

Photo of the Day: Beresheet's Final Moon Photo and the Likely Cause of Its Lunar Landing Failure...

SpaceIL

Earlier today, SpaceIL released the photo above that was the last-ever image that the Beresheet lander took (from an altitude of 15 kilometers, or 9 miles) during its ill-fated attempt to touch down on the Moon last Thursday. According to these tweets by SpaceIL and a Planetary Society staff member below, a likely cause of the spacecraft's main engine shutting down prematurely was an errant command that was transmitted to it from the flight team during the landing maneuver. A software glitch caused by an attempt to fix a sensor problem aboard Beresheet led to a chain reaction that eventually led to its main engine deactivating during the descent towards the lunar surface. By the time the engine was finally reactivated, Beresheet was traveling at a velocity of 500 kilometers per hour (311 miles per hour)...making a collision with the Moon's surface unavoidable.

If it was indeed a software issue that prevented Beresheet from landing on the Moon safely almost a week ago, then this is good news! This shows that Beresheet itself was physically healthy (apart from that sensor issue)...and that no significant upgrades would need to be made to the Beresheet 2.0 spacecraft to increase its chances of mission success next time. The only real thing that would need to be corrected is the flight team's vigilance towards transmitting the wrong command at the worst possible moment to the lunar lander. The same thing that befell NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter in 1999 (Google this spacecraft and read about what happened to it) is the same thing that befell Beresheet: Human error. Correct this oversight next time, and Israel will finally become the fourth nation (behind the United States, Russia and China) to soft-land on the Moon. Happy Hump Day!

Here are the findings of the preliminary investigation of #Beresheet’s landing maneuver: ⁰It appears that during the landing process a command was entered that led to a chain reaction, which caused the main engine to switch off and prevented it from being reactivated.

— Israel To The Moon (@TeamSpaceIL) April 17, 2019

We now know why Beresheet crashed: A software command uploaded to fix a sensor problem inadvertently started a chain reaction that shut down the main engines, dooming the lander. https://t.co/5P3D37c10J pic.twitter.com/dazeM4nT3k

— Jason Davis (@jasonrdavis) April 17, 2019

Beresheet Will Fly Again!

SpaceIL

Yesterday, SpaceIL president Morris Kahn tweeted the video below where he announced that Israel will build another lander, dubbed Beresheet 2.0, to finish what its predecessor was unable to do last Thursday. A targeted launch date obviously wasn't given, as the SpaceIL team met today to discuss preliminary details for the new project.

The dream goes on! Morris Kahn just announced the launching of Beresheet 2.0 #Beresheet2.0 #IsraeltotheMoon pic.twitter.com/fHlo3jeQ4W

— Israel To The Moon (@TeamSpaceIL) April 13, 2019

All I can say is, this is great news! Keep in mind that it took NASA seven tries for it to successfully reach the Moon in the early 1960s (Ranger 7 got to the Moon and intentionally impacted the lunar surface on July 31, 1964). Assuming that Beresheet 2.0 gets the necessary upgrades to give it a better chance of mission success over the first Beresheet lander (more redundancy in its systems, star trackers that aren't affected by glaring sunlight, and perhaps a different and more reliable main engine), then Israel should be back on course to become the fourth nation (behind the United States, Russia and China) to soft-land a robotic spacecraft on the lunar landscape.


SpaceIL

I'm tempted towards eventually tweeting to SpaceIL (like I did last year, as shown below) and asking it to allow the general public (besides the good folks of Israel) to submit their names online and have them fly on Beresheet 2.0 when it makes its triumphant journey onto the surface of Earth's closest celestial neighbor! Carry on.

Note to @TeamSpaceIL, if you allow folks around the world to submit their names [via the Internet, like what @NASA & Japan (@JAXA_en) occasionally do] to fly aboard the #SpaceIL lander to the lunar surface next year, that'd be TOTALLY awesome!

Just a suggestion. :) #SpaceX #Moon https://t.co/TtF7F8ndWk

— Richard Par (@RichTPar) July 10, 2018

Beresheet Update: If At First You Don't Succeed...

SpaceIL

Unfortunately, Israel will have to temporarily settle for being the seventh nation to successfully place a spacecraft in orbit around the Moon after its Beresheet lander fell short of safely touching down on the lunar surface today...which would've made it only the fourth country (behind the United States, Russia and China) to accomplish this feat. 12:25 PM, Pacific Daylight Time (10:25 PM, Israeli Time) would've marked the moment that Beresheet softly landed at Mare Serenitatis (the "Sea of Serenity") after its 20-minute descent from lunar orbit. Instead, the flight team at SpaceIL—which developed and operated the four-legged robotic probe—lost contact with the lander just as it came within 489 feet (149 meters) of the Moon's surface. Issues with the main engine plagued Beresheet in its final moments of descent. And just as the main engine came back online and began firing again, it was too late.

On the plus side, the XPRIZE Foundation will still reward SpaceIL with $1 million after it came close to landing the first privately-funded spacecraft on the Moon. This should obviously be the seed money for the construction of Beresheet's successor. However, based on what I read about its now-defunct predecessor, Beresheet 2 (not its official name) should make up for known issues in the previous lander by having more redundancy in its systems, use star trackers that aren't sensitive to glaring sunlight, and possibly utilize another thruster for its main engine (the engine on the original Beresheet is a British-made thruster intended for use on satellites). Of course, now is not the time to point fingers at anyone or anything as Beresheet's flight team is still analyzing data to see what truly went wrong with the lander just as it was on the verge of making history.

All I can say is, rise from the ashes Beresheet—just like how NASA's Phoenix lander rose from the ashes of the Mars Polar Lander, which was lost in 1999...and how Mars Odyssey and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (which are still sending back stunning photos from the Red Planet) are the successors (along with the now-silent Mars Global Surveyor) to NASA's Mars Observer, which fell silent just 3 days before it was to enter Martian orbit in 1993. Space exploration is hard. But when rocket scientists are giving a second chance to redo a space mission that suffered a heartbreaking setback, it can be glorious. I hope the nation of Israel will give the Beresheet mission another opportunity to truly become the historic endeavor it was destined to be. Carry on.


SpaceIL

Photos of the Day: Beresheet's First Close-up Images of the Moon!

SpaceIL

Last Thursday, Israel's Beresheet lander took these photos of the Moon's surface just as the four-legged spacecraft fired its main engine to insert itself into lunar orbit. The far side of the Moon, shown above, was taken by Beresheet from an altitude of 470 kilometers (292 miles) above the ancient craters. In the pic below, Earth is visible about 386,160 kilometers (240,000 miles) away as the lunar lander ventured near the sunlit side of the Moon during the orbit-insertion maneuver.

Over the next four days, the flight team at SpaceIL in Israel will conduct final checks and make sure that all calculations are correct and complete as Beresheet hopefully makes its historic landing at Mare Serenitatis ("Sea of Serenity") this Thursday, April 11. Beresheet will then go from giving Israel the honor of being the seventh nation to orbit the Moon [behind the United States (whose Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is still operational at Earth's closest celestial neighbor), the former Soviet Union, India, China, the European Space Agency and Japan (which sent its Kaguya orbiter to the Moon in 2007)] to attaining the prestigious title of becoming the first country to soft-land a privately-funded spacecraft on the lunar surface. Of course, this would complement Israel's position of being the fourth nation (behind the United States, the former Soviet Union and China) to land a robotic probe on the Moon, overall. Very exciting!


SpaceIL

Beresheet Has Entered Lunar Orbit!

SpaceIL

Israel Is Getting Closer To An Historic Moon Landing (Press Release)

YEHUD, Israel, April 4 – SpaceIL’s engineering team and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) this evening at 5:17 p.m. Israel time conducted the most critical maneuver to date of Beresheet’s journey to the Moon – the Lunar Capture. This maneuver enabled the spacecraft to be captured by the Moon’s gravity and begin orbiting the Moon – and with the Moon, orbiting the Earth.

Today’s maneuver moved the spacecraft into an elliptical orbit around the Moon, with the closest point (perilune) 500 km to the Moon, with the farthest point (apolune) 10,000 km from the Moon. Unlike the longer orbits around the Earth, Beresheet’s first lunar orbit will last 14 hours. Before it lands on the Moon, each orbit thereafter will take only two hours. At the beginning of this week, Beresheet reached, for the last time, the closest point to Earth in its last Earth orbit, only 1,700 km, and continued on course to the point where it could join the lunar orbit, 400,000 km from Earth.

At 5:18 p.m. Israel time the spacecraft’s engine activated for six minutes, and reduced its speed by 1,000 km/hour, from 8,500 km/hour to 7,500 km/hour, relative to the Moon’s velocity. The maneuver was conducted with full communication between Beresheet’s control room in Israel and the spacecraft, and signals in real time match the correct course. In the coming week, with expected intense engineering activities, many more maneuvers will take Beresheet from an elliptical to a round orbit, at a height of 200 km from the Moon. The maneuvers will aim to reduce the spacecraft’s distance from the Moon and reach the optimal point to conduct an autonomic landing in the Sea of Serenity in the evening Israel time, April 11.

SpaceIL Chairman, Morris Kahn: “The lunar capture is an historic event in and of itself – but it also joins Israel in a seven-nation club that has entered the Moon’s orbit. A week from today we’ll make more history by landing on the moon, joining three super powers who have done so. Today I am proud to be an Israeli.”

SpaceIL CEO, Ido Anteby: “After six weeks in space, we have succeeded in overcoming another critical stage by entering the Moon’s gravity. This is another significant achievement our engineering team achieved while demonstrating determination and creativity in finding solutions to unexpected challenges. We still have a long way until the lunar landing, but I‘m convinced our team will complete the mission to land the first Israeli spacecraft on the Moon, making us all proud.”

IAI CEO, Nimrod Sheffer: “After a challenging journey, we made tonight another Israeli record and became the seventh nation to orbit the Moon. Even before Beresheet was launched, it already was a national success story that shows our groundbreaking technological capabilities. Tonight, we again reach new heights. In the coming week, our talented engineering team will work 24/7 to bring us to an historic event on April 11. Good luck Beresheet.”

Source: NASASpaceflight.com

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SpaceIL


SpaceIL

Photo of the Day: Beresheet's First Selfie in Space...

SpaceIL

Just thought I'd share this cool pic taken by Israel's Beresheet lunar lander on March 3...from a distance of 37,600 kilometers (23,369 miles) from Earth. As of today, the 4-legged spacecraft is now 270,000 kilometers (167,806 miles) from our home planet—after firing its main engine for 152 seconds to bring its elliptical orbit ever so closer to the Moon.

Beresheet is set to touch down on the Moon's surface on April 11...exactly one week after the craft enters lunar orbit.

Beresheet Is Headed to the Moon!

SpaceX

NASA Administrator Statement on Israeli Moon Mission (Press Release)

The following is a statement from NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine on Thursday’s launch of Israel’s first mission beyond Earth’s orbit. SpaceIL’s lander blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, and now is on its way to becoming the first commercial lander to reach the Moon’s surface.

“Congratulations to SpaceIL and the Israel Space Agency. This is a historic step for all nations and commercial space as we look to extend our collaborations beyond low-Earth orbit and on to the Moon.

“In July, I was in Israel and was very impressed with their commitment to expanding their role in the world’s space community. As we better understand Israel’s capabilities and the innovative work of their private industry, we know they’ll be an even stronger international partner in the future, one vital to the success of extending commercial space to the Moon and eventually on to Mars and beyond. There are terrific opportunities awaiting Israel and all of us in advancing the space frontier.”
The Beresheet spacecraft will enter lunar orbit on April 4, and land on the surface of the Moon a week later on April 11.

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SpaceIL


SpaceIL


SpaceIL

Mementos Added to Israel's First Lunar Lander That's Targeted for Launch Next February...

Yoav Weiss

SpaceIL, IAI To Send Time Capsule on Israel's Historic Moon Mission (News Release)

The time capsule will include Israeli national, cultural and traditional symbols, such as Israel’s Declaration of Independence, Hebrew songs, the Wayfarer’s Prayer, and paintings by Israeli children.

YEHUD – Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) presented today at IAI’s Space Division a time capsule that will travel to the Moon — and remain there indefinitely — with the first Israeli spacecraft, which will launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in February, 2019.

The time capsule consists of three discs, each containing hundreds of digital files. Included among the files, which will travel to the Moon inside SpaceIL’s lunar spacecraft, are: Details about the spacecraft and the crew building it; national symbols, like Israel’s Declaration of Independence, the Bible, Israel’s national anthem, “Hatikvah”, and the Israeli flag; cultural objects; materials – paintings, for example – collected over many years from the public for sending to the Moon; dictionaries in 27 languages and encyclopedias, an indication of knowledge accumulated by all humanity thus far; Israeli songs; the Wayfarer’s Prayer; books of art and science and Israeli literature; information about Israeli scientific and technological discoveries and developments that influenced the world; photos of Israel’s landscapes and leading figures in Israeli culture; a children’s book that was inspired by SpaceIL’s mission to the Moon.

The time capsule, along with the spacecraft, will remain on the Moon indefinitely, even after completing Israel’s first lunar mission. With no plans to return to Earth, the spacecraft and information within the time capsule’s disks will possibly be found and distributed by future generations.

In early 2019, the spacecraft, recently named Beresheet (the Hebrew word for Genesis), will launch alongside other satellites as a secondary payload on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The precise launch date remains undetermined, as SpaceIL awaits final confirmation from the launch company.

“This is another step on our way to the Moon,” said Ido Anteby, CEO of SpaceIL. “Inserting the disks into the spacecraft, which is a real “time capsule,” indicates the spacecraft’s readiness to blast off from the launch site in a few weeks. SpaceIL’s crews and IAI have completed testing of the spacecraft and its systems, and are preparing for the beginning of the amazing and complex journey that exemplifies innovation, creativity and courage. The spacecraft’s historic journey, which also includes a scientific mission, makes a significant contribution to advancing the space industry and the subject of space in Israel.”

Yonatan Winetraub, one of three SpaceIL founders, said, as he inserted the time capsule into a spacecraft: “This is a very emotional moment. We do not know how long the spacecraft and the time capsule will remain on the Moon. It is very possible that future generations will find this information and want to learn more about this historic moment.”

Opher Doron, IAI’s Space Division General Manager, said: “We are proud to be the first non-governmental entity in the world to go to the Moon. Landing on the Moon was for many years a little-discussed topic among the public, but recently we see growing interest as world superpowers seek to return to the Moon in a variety of commercial missions. There is no doubt that the technological knowledge acquired by IAI during the development and construction of Beresheet, together with Space IL and combined with the space capabilities developed over more than 30 years at IAI, puts us at the global forefront in the ability to complete lunar missions.”

The spacecraft, whose construction was carried out at IAI’s Space Division, successfully completed a series of recent tests to examine the integration of systems, and a series of complex experiments aimed at testing its durability. Concurrently, validation and verification tests checked the function of the spacecraft in scenarios it could experience during the mission. Since actual space conditions cannot be replicated, tests are carried out in part by a SpaceIL simulator that mimics space conditions and part on the spacecraft itself. Next, SpaceIL will soon ship the spacecraft to the launch site in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

In October, SpaceIL and the Israeli Space Agency announced a collaboration with NASA that will enable SpaceIL to improve its ability to track and communicate with the spacecraft before, during, and after landing on the Moon. Two weeks ago a retro-reflector from NASA was installed on the spacecraft, an instrument that reflects laser beams and will enable NASA to precisely locate the spacecraft on the lunar surface after the landing. SpaceIL, the Israel Space Agency and NASA also agreed that NASA will have access to data gathered by the magnetometer installed aboard the Israeli spacecraft. The instrument, which was developed in collaboration with Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, will measure the magnetic field on and above the landing site.

Source: SpaceIL.com

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Yoav Weiss

A New Development for SpaceIL as Israel's First Moon Mission Marches on Towards Launch...

SpaceIL

NASA, Israel Space Agency Sign Agreement for Commercial Lunar Cooperation (Press Release - October 3)

NASA has signed an agreement with the Israel Space Agency (ISA) to cooperatively utilize the Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL’s commercial lunar mission, expected to land on the Moon in 2019.

NASA will contribute a laser retroreflector array to aid with ground tracking and Deep Space Network support to aid in mission communication. ISA and SpaceIL will share data with NASA from the SpaceIL lunar magnetometer installed aboard the spacecraft. The instrument, which was developed in collaboration with the Weizmann Institute of Science, will measure the magnetic field on and above the landing site. The data will be made publicly available through NASA’s Planetary Data System. In addition, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will attempt to take scientific measurements of the SpaceIL lander as it lands on the Moon.

The agreement was signed by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and Avi Blasberger, Director of the Israel Space Agency. Dr. Ido Anteby, CEO of SpaceIL, was also present.

“I’m thrilled to extend progress in commercial cooperation we’ve made in low-Earth orbit to the lunar environment with this new agreement with the Israel Space Agency and SpaceIL,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “Innovative partnerships like this are going to be essential as we go forward to the Moon and create new opportunities there.”

SpaceIL competed in the Google Lunar X Prize, and continues to work toward landing the first Israeli spacecraft on the Moon. Together, NASA and SpaceIL will collaborate on analyzing the scientific data returned from the mission.

The agreement exemplifies the innovative approach that NASA and its international partners are taking to team up with commercial partners to advance important science and exploration objectives on and around the Moon.

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SpaceIL

Images of the Day: Israel's Lunar Lander...

SpaceIL

Just thought I'd share these photos and artwork depicting the SpaceIL lunar lander...which is scheduled to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida this December, and touch down on the surface of the Moon on February 13, 2019. Instead of taking a direct route to the Moon and do a standard orbit insertion maneuver using a lengthy engine burn, the SpaceIL lander will settle into Earth's orbit, and gradually raise its orbit (using smaller thruster burns) until it takes the spacecraft near the lunar surface...where it will make its landing attempt. Israel's spacecraft was one of many participants to compete for the Google Lunar XPRIZE that began almost a decade ago. The XPRIZE competition ended last March without awarding any winners (the participants were originally supposed to send a spacecraft to the Moon by 2014 to win the grand prize of $20 million USD, but that date was extended to this year after 2014 turned out to be an unfeasible launch date for the competitors), but that didn't stop the Israeli team from continuing the project and being only 5 months away from making this mission a reality.

Note to @TeamSpaceIL, if you allow folks around the world to submit their names [via the Internet, like what @NASA & Japan (@JAXA_en) occasionally do] to fly aboard the #SpaceIL lander to the lunar surface next year, that'd be TOTALLY awesome!

Just a suggestion. :) #SpaceX #Moon https://t.co/TtF7F8ndWk

— Richard Par (@RichTPar) July 10, 2018

As shown in the tweet above, I sent a message to SpaceIL mentioning that it would be awesome if it allowed folks around the world to submit their names via the Web to fly aboard the lander when it heads to the Moon. SpaceIL liked my tweet, but didn't respond to my suggestion. However, it did have a previous PR campaign where SpaceIL announced that anyone who took a photo with a model of its lander at Ben Gurion Airport (in Israel) would have it placed aboard the spacecraft if the person posted the pic on Facebook and Instagram with the #SpaceIL hashtag included. Lucky airport patrons! If someone at SpaceIL is reading this Blog entry: You still have two to three months (technically it's about five months, but those last two months would be spent on prepping the lander for launch at the SpaceX facility in Florida) to make a quick "Send Your Name to the Moon's Surface" campaign to happen online! Happy Hump Day.


SpaceIL


SpaceIL


SpaceIL