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The Israeli spacecraft will land on the moon on February 13, 2018
July 10, 2018
SpaceIL has entered final stages of testing at Israel Aircraft Industries. In December it will be launched into space on SpaceX's Falcon launcher, and two months later it will make an independent landing on the Moon, from where it will send photographs and measurements of the magnetic field
SpaceIL and Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) announced today that the first Israeli spacecraft to land on the moon will be launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard SpaceX 9, of SpaceX in December 2018. After a two-month journey it is expected to land on the Moon February 13, 2019. The spacecraft was developed for eight years by the SpaceIL Association in cooperation with IAI. Approximately NIS 320 million was invested in the construction of the spacecraft, most of them from private donors, headed by SpaceIL president Morris Kahn, who donated NIS 100 million.
The project began eight years ago, after Google announced the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition, according to which the first group to field an autonomous spacecraft on the moon and perform a photographic mission would receive a $ 20 million prize. The three founders of SpaceIL, Yariv Bash, Kfir Damari and Yehonatan Weintraub, registered for the competition and established the association that succeeded in motivating many donors and enlisting support from industry and academia in Israel.Including the Weizmann Institute of Science, the Israeli Space Agency, the Ministry of Science and Bezeq.
At the end of March 2018, Google announced that the competition had reached its official end without a winner, and that it was suspending competition. The Israeli group continued the project and carried out the task regardless of Google. Its latest mission is to photograph the lunar surface and measure the magnetic field at the landing site for research carried out by the Weizmann Institute of Science and UCLA.
STMICROELECTRONICS
SpaceIL's Moon Landing Platform SpaceIL's Space Landing Platform
The spacecraft weighs only 600 kilograms, and is considered the smallest spacecraft to land on the moon, about five feet wide, about two meters wide and carrying about 75 percent of its weight, although the moon is about 384,000 kilometers from Earth, The SpaceIL spacecraft will last about 9 million miles. It will disconnect from the launcher at 60,000 kilometers and begin orbiting the Earth in orbital orbits, which will be gradually increased until the end of the ellipse reaches the moon, and the spacecraft will activate its engines and slow its speed to allow the moon to trap it. Until the right moment for landing.
The landing process will take about 15 minutes and will be carried out autonomously based on the navigation and navigation software developed by SpaceIL. The spacecraft was built in a way that allows it to perform all operations autonomously. The operators in the control room at IAI's Bat-Space factory in Yehud will be able to transmit data and parameters that will be integrated into the autonomous program before each operation. All the spacecraft systems can be operated from the control room. The control room will be able to command the spacecraft even after landing on the moon.The spacecraft will transmit information, data and images to the control room throughout the mission.
SpaceIL CEO Dr. Ido Antebi said that in the coming months, the spacecraft will undergo a series of tests and intensive experiments at IAI to prove its durability in the launch, landing and landing conditions. IAI's CEO, Yossi Weiss, said that the State of Israel is deeply rooted in the space world in military operations, but it must harness resources for a civilian space that is a world of innovation, technology, education and border crossing.
https://techtime.co.il/2018/07/10/spaceil-4/