Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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April 19th, 2019
Space Launch System (SLS) Credit: NASA/MSFC
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued Priority Open Recommendations: NASA.
In March 2018, GAO identified 18 priority recommendations for NASA. Since then, NASA has implemented 10 of those recommendations by, among other things, taking actions to better align its strategic sourcing practices with those used by leading commercial companies and improving controls over some of its information systems.
Credit Roscosmos/NASA
SLS and ISS
In April 2019, GAO identified one additional priority recommendation for NASA, bringing the total number to nine. These recommendations involve the following areas: monitoring program costs and execution as well as improving efficiency and effectiveness.
“NASA’s continued attention to these issues could lead to significant improvements in government operations,” the GAO document points out.
Among topics spotlighted in the report is developing a contingency plan for access to the International Space Station, as well as Space Launch System (SLS) Block I, as well as Exploration Mission (EM) 1 and 2.
To read the full GAO document, go to:
Posted in 
Intelsat 29e.
Courtesy: Arianespace
Luxembourg-based Intelsat reports that its Intelsat 29e (IS29e) is now a total loss, reporting earlier that the spacecraft suffered an anomaly.
Late on April 7, the Intelsat 29e propulsion system experienced damage that caused a leak of the propellant on board the satellite resulting in a service disruption to customers on the satellite.
That event caused a service outage on the Intelsat 29e satellite that impacted maritime, aeronautical and wireless operator customers in the Latin America, Caribbean and North Atlantic regions.
While working to recover the satellite, a second anomaly occurred, after which all efforts to recover the satellite were unsuccessful.
Intelsat 9e pre-launch image.
Credit: Boeing
Affected customers
“Since the anomaly, Intelsat has been in active contact with affected customers,” the global satellite operator said in a statement.
“Restoration paths on other Intelsat satellites serving the region and third-party satellites have been provided for a majority of the disrupted services. Migration and service restoration are well underway; highlighting the resiliency of the Intelsat fleet and the benefit of the robust Ku-band open architecture ecosystem,” the statement explains.
Quite troubling
Given that Intelsat has declared its IS-29E a total loss, “means it will continue to drift uncontrolled along its current orbit in GEO,” explains T.S. Kelso, the operator of CelesTrak, a leading source for orbital element sets and related software to keep an eye on satellites and orbital debris.
Kelso tweeted back on April 16th that the current situation with IS-29E “continues to be quite troubling,” with the troubled satellite spiraling around IS-11 & IS-32E. Additionally there are reports of 13 pieces of associated debris, he reported.
Errant IS-29E is not the only threat in GEO today. Here is a view of everything tracked in that region of the GEO Protected Zone. Green are operational satellites, orange are dead ones, red are rocket bodies, yellow are other debris.
Credit: CelesTrak
Nightmare scenario
In an earlier tweet, on April 11th, Kelso said: “Watched nervously” this morning as IS-29E and NASA’s Tracking Data Relay Satellite 3 “had what we consider a ‘nightmare scenario’ in GEO — a high-speed encounter — (~1 km/s). Let’s wish Intelsat luck on getting IS-29E back under control.”
The Intelsat 29e satellite was launched on January 27, 2016 atop an Ariane 5 booster.
Meanwhile, according to the Intelsat statement, “a failure review board has been convened with the satellite’s manufacturer, Boeing, to complete a comprehensive analysis of the cause of the anomaly.”
“At this point, we know that it continues to spiral around the GEO belt drifting at about 1.2 degrees of longitude per day,” Kelso told Inside Outer Space. “That means it will be making a circuit of the belt in a little less than a year and we will have one more large object to stay on our toes about and steer clear of for all of the other 500+ operational GEO satellites.”
Interactive tool
To keep an eye on this troublesome event, go to this interactive 3D view at:
https://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/
Note: Click the globe icon for GEO; search for IS-29E (then clear the filter); click on IS-29E on right & track; click dots to see what they are.
Credit: Subcommittee on Space, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology/Screengrab
If you want boots on Mars by 2033, forget it.
A new study has found that a 2033 departure date for a Mars orbital mission is “infeasible under all budget scenarios and technology development and testing schedules.”
However, 2035 may be possible under budgets that match 1.9 percent real growth, but carries high risks of schedule delays due to complex technology development, testing, and fabrication schedules for the Deep Space Transport.
Mars ship.
Credit: National Geographic TV
“2037 is the earliest the mission could feasibly depart for Mars,” the report states, “assuming a small budget increase or smoothing budgets over two time periods in the 2030s, with 2039 being a more realistic timeframe.”
Credit: Bryan Versteeg
Mandated study
The study — Evaluation of a Human Mission to Mars by 2033 — was carried out by the Institute for Defense Analyses’ Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI).
The NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017 mandated that NASA ask an independent organization to study a Mars human spaceflight mission to be launched in 2033, including an evaluation of technologies, schedules, estimated costs, and budget profiles for the mission to Mars and its precursor missions.
NASA requested STPI to conduct this analysis and base the study’s schedule for human spaceflight on NASA’s current and notional plans leading to a mission to Mars orbit.
The research work was done under a National Science Foundation contract.
Phobos, the larger of Mars’ two moons as seen by the High-Resolution Imaging Sciences
Experiment (HiRISE) on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in March, 2008. The illuminated portion of the
image is some 21 km across and objects as small as some 6-meters across can be resolved. Courtesy of
NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.
High-level recommendations
In summary, the report’s findings have led to three high-level recommendations.
- First, given that there is near-certainty that NASA cannot meet the 2033 goal, and 2037 and beyond is a more realistic timeline, NASA has time to consider a mission with value greater than that obtained from just orbiting Mars and returning. For example, NASA could consider making the first Mars mission a journey to one of the Martian moons, Phobos.
- Second, regardless of what the specific mission to Mars is, the organizational challenges of managing combined developments and missions to the International Space Station (ISS), the Gateway (a small human-tended station in orbit around the Moon), the lunar surface, and Mars are significant and should be addressed. If Congress would like NASA to abide by a specific timeframe in which to reach Mars, a goal not unlike Apollo, there may be value to creating an Associate Administrator position in charge of the Mars missions, with discrete budget authority over the required Mars elements (distinct from Associate Administrator oversight of the Gateway and the ISS).
- Lastly, from the point of view of human health risks, given the knowledge gaps, NASA may benefit from developing a unified research plan intended to prioritize its approach to fill in gaps in knowledge, especially on the combined effects of radiation, microgravity, and isolation that may be encountered on a human mission to Mars and precursor missions.
To read the full report — Evaluation of a Human Mission to Mars by 2033 – go to:
https://www.ida.org/idamedia/Corporate/Files/Publications/STPIPubs/2019/D-10510.pdf
Israel’s Beresheet lunar lander imagery taken before crash landing on April 11.
Credit: SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI)
Next week, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) will attempt to look for the crash site of Israel’s Beresheet Moon lander.
The spacecraft careened into the lunar surface on April 11, a crash landing apparently due to a “manual command” that was entered into the spacecraft’s computer.
“This led to a chain reaction in the spacecraft, during which the main engine switched off, which prevented it from activating further,” according to a SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) statement.
Last image from failed Beresheet lunar lander, at a distance of 9 miles (15 kilometers) from the surface of the Moon.
Credit: SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI)
Finding the crash site
“The first opportunity to try to image or range to the Beresheet site is April 22 when the orbit of LRO is over the likely crash site. Attempts are expected to be made on a few orbits at that time at varying off-nadir angles,” said MIT’s David Smith, the principal investigator for the LRO-carried Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) He is also emeritus researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
LRO is only over the landing site twice each month and only one of those is in sunlight. That’s when the orbiter can use its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) – a system of three cameras mounted on the LRO that captures high resolution photos of the lunar surface.
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).
Credit: NASA/GSFC
Lunar surface search
“We think it unlikely LROC will be able to see actual debris on the surface, just a scarring of the surface,” Smith told Inside Outer Space. “We understand that it is likely that the actual impact site could be a kilometer or more away from the best estimate of the impact site today, so it may take some searching, even for the camera. Our best hope is that LROC can see a fresh mark on the lunar surface to help pin down the precise location,” he said.
Integrated on Israeli lunar lander, a NASA scientific payload consisting of a small Lunar Retroreflector Array (LRA).
Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Along with high-power camera sweeps, LRO will be using the onboard LOLA, trying to detect a NASA-provided laser retro-reflector array in the Beresheet wreckage zone.
Retro-reflector array
The size of a computer mouse, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/MIT Laser Retro-reflector Array (LRA) for Lunar Landers is comprised of eight mirrors made of quartz cube corners that are set into a dome-shaped aluminum frame. That array is lightweight, radiation-hardened and long-lived.
From the high-flying orbiter, laser beams generated by LOLA would strike the device and then are backscattered from the lunar surface. For each laser beam, LOLA measures its time of flight, or range.
NASA experiment after installation (the array is mounted on the top of the spacecraft, lower left, at about 7 o’clock position).
Credit: SpaceIL/Courtesy Xiaoli Sun/GSFC
LOLA would operate when LROC looks for the crash site since they are co-boresighted, Smith said, but also when the site is in darkness.
“Our chances of a return from LOLA will be improved when LROC identifies the site, but our chances may never be great, but we will try for several weeks, maybe months,” Smith said.
The Israeli lunar spacecraft weighed only 1,322 pounds, or 600 kilograms.
Credit: Eliran Avital
Curiosity Mastcam Left photo taken on Sol 2378, April 15, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2380 duties.
The science team has been focused on determining which target in the vicinity of “Aberlady” will become the focus of the next drill campaign, reports Brittney Cooper, an atmospheric scientist at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Curiosity Mastcam Right image acquired on Sol 2377, April 14, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Target 3
“In the end, target 3 was recommended by rover planners for its flatter texture,” Cooper adds, as an Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) raster of other targets showed there wasn’t a large difference in composition between the two.
“Once formally included in plan activities, target 3 will be given a proper name consistent with those being used in the ‘Glen Torridon’ region,” Cooper notes.
Dump pile
The rover recently took a Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) open cover image of the Aberlady sample dump pile and then an arm retract to get it out of the way for a Mastcam multispectral observation of the dump pile that was to follow.
“Next, a Navcam dust devil survey and suprahorizon movie are included to monitor clouds and dust devils in the current transition from dusty to cloudy season,” Cooper explains.
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) photos produced on Sol 2379, April 16, 2019, inspecting latest drill hole.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Science block
Then a Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) 10×1 vertical Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) and Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) observation on the Aberlady drill tailings and a Mastcam documentation image, Cooper says, will wrap up a one-hour science block.
“After sunset, two APXS rasters on two differently toned drill tailing targets are planned to run until the wee hours of the night,” Cooper reports, when Chemistry & Mineralogy X-Ray Diffraction/X-Ray Fluorescence Instrument (CheMin) will take over with its third integration on the Aberlady drill sample, “using X-ray diffraction to identify the signals of the minerals present in the sample.”
Bump ahead
Lastly, standard Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) passives and Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) observations were included to continue monitoring the environmental conditions at the current workspace.
For Curiosity, Cooper concludes, the goal is to finish up at Aberlady, and bump to target 3 for “Drill Sol 0.”
Curiosity Navcam Right B image taken on Sol 2379, April 16, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Israel’s Beresheet lunar lander imagery taken before crash landing on April 11.
Credit: SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI)
A preliminary investigation of what caused Israel’s Beresheet crash landing on the Moon April 11 has found it appears that a “manual command” was entered into the spacecraft’s computer.
“This led to a chain reaction in the spacecraft, during which the main engine switched off, which prevented it from activating further,” according to a SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) statement.
Teams continue to investigate further, in order to understand the full picture of what occurred during the mission, the statement explains. “In the coming weeks, final results of the investigation will be released.”
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).
Credit: NASA/GSFC
LRO lookout
Meanwhile, Researchers are on the lookout for a NASA piggyback experiment that could have survived the destructive April 11 crash landing of Israel’s lunar lander, Beresheet.
There will be repeat attempts to target the crash site by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).
Crash landing survivor? NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/MIT Laser Retro-reflector Array (LRA) for Lunar Landers.
Credit: SpaceIL/Courtesy Xiaoli Sun/GSFC
Along with high-power camera sweeps, LRO will be using an onboard Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA), trying to detect a NASA-provided laser retro-reflector array in the Beresheet wreckage zone.
Called the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/MIT Laser Retro-reflector Array (LRA) for Lunar Landers, the ball-shaped device was located on the top side of the Israeli lander.
Laser beaming
The size of a computer mouse, LRA is composed of eight mirrors made of quartz cube corners that are set into a dome-shaped aluminum frame. That array is lightweight, radiation-hardened and long-lived.
NASA experiment after installation (the array is mounted on the top of the spacecraft, lower left, at about 7 o’clock position).
Credit: SpaceIL/Courtesy Xiaoli Sun/GSFC
From the high-flying LRO, laser beams generated by LOLA would strike the device and then are backscattered from the lunar surface. For each laser beam, LOLA measures its time of flight, or range.
Overhead passes
While there will be many attempts to target the wreckage, LRO is only directly over the site twice per month, and one of those will be in darkness (not an issue for the laser), explains Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s David Smith, the principal investigator for LOLA and an emeritus researcher at NASA Goddard in Greenbelt, Maryland.
“But the site can be viewed on several passes around the ‘overhead’ pass by looking off to the side or forward or backward. This requires the spacecraft to slew or roll to see the target,” Smith adds. “That’s a decision that LRO makes to ensure there are no issues with regard to constraints on pointing close to the sun or star cameras being able to see the stars (and not the lunar surface),” he said, so the process requires requests for slew and role magnitudes and directions to the LRO project for a specific observation time.
Integrated on Israeli lunar lander, a NASA scientific payload consisting of a small Lunar Retroreflector Array (LRA).
Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Pointing requests
This is normal procedure, Smith said, but typically there’s need to submit pointing requests about a week in advance. That allows the LRO project to check on pointing abilities (there are limits) of LRO and on thermal effects and spacecraft solar array pointing for charging the batteries.
“It may take 10 to 15 minutes for the spacecraft to turn to the desired direction and another 15 minutes to return to its normal nadir mode for just a few seconds of observations,” Smith told Inside Outer Space.
The Israeli lunar spacecraft weighed only 1,322 pounds, or 600 kilograms.
Credit: Eliran Avital
“I am sure the project will start to attempt observations as soon as possible,” Smith said. LRO’s camera system and the laser are co-boresighted, “so when the camera slews to take an image the laser altimeter automatically goes with it and will attempt to make a range observation at the same time.”
At a speed of over 3,300 miles per hour (1.5 kilometers per second), the whole LRO observation period is over in a few seconds, Smith said.
Last image from failed Beresheet lunar lander, at a distance of 9 miles (15 kilometers) from the surface of the Moon.
Credit: SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI)
Credit: NASA
NASA’s plan to plant boots on the Moon is underway – and the call is to send astronauts to the Moon’s South Pole by 2024. The floors of polar craters there reach frigid temperatures because they’re permanently in shadow.
“The South Pole is far from the Apollo landing sites clustered around the equator, so it will offer us a new challenge and a new environment to explore as we build our capabilities to travel farther into space,” says Steven Clarke, deputy associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The South Pole region contains ice and may be rich in other resources, he adds.
The Sun beats endlessly on the peaks of the south pole’s Shackleton crater, but its cold depths may not have seen light for 2 billion years.
Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Habitat shacks for Shackleton?
Of particular interest in that area is Shackleton crater, a 12 miles (19 kilometers) in diameter feature. The low-temperature interior of this crater functions as a cold trap that may imprison and freeze volatiles shed during comet impacts on the Moon.
Water availability on the Moon can further deep space human exploration, potentially useful for drinking, cooling equipment, breathing and making rocket fuel for missions farther into the solar system – ideally to Mars.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/SVS
Questions remain
Still, what needs to be determined is the quality and quantity of lunar water ice. Furthermore, if there, how hard will it be to extract and utilize this valuable resource, and at what economic cost?
“The way to unravel the water-ice mystery is to go to the surface of the lunar south pole (or both poles) and measure the composition of the surfaces in question. Getting a definitive answer about the nature of lunar water would be game changing,” explained the late Paul Spudis – a leader in looking for water ice reserves on the Moon.
Newly developed extraction technique for the Moon, thermal mining, makes use of mirrors to exploit sun-shy, water ice-laden polar craters.
Credit: School of Mines/Dreyer, Williams, Sowers
Additionally, areas near Shackleton crater are bathed in sunlight for extended periods of time, over 200 Earth days of constant illumination. Unrelenting sunlight is a boon to future explorers, allowing them to harvest sunlight in order to light up a lunar base and power on-site equipment.
Credit: StartRocket
A Russian entrepreneurial group – StartRocket — has got its eyes on the sky – to create an in-orbit system that would allow advertisements, logos, special product offerings and messages to be constantly posted.
Making use of a cluster of cubesats, the orbital display can reach a potential audience of 7 billion – everyone on the planet. The display orbits at roughly 250 – 310 miles (400-500 kilometers) altitude and would deliver 3 to 4 messages/images a day.
Credit: StartRocket/Screengrab: Inside Outer Space
Vlad Sitnikov is project leader of this space startup, bringing to the table 20 years of advertising skills.
Credit: Start Rocket/Screengrab: Inside Outer Space
Sky branding
The dream, according to the group, is to follow artist Andy Warhol’s observation: “The most beautiful thing in Tokyo is McDonald’s. The most beautiful thing in Stockholm is McDonald’s. The most beautiful thing in Florence is McDonald’s. Peking and Moscow don’t have anything beautiful yet.”
The group’s website explains “Space has to be beautiful. With the best brands our sky will amaze us every night. No ugly place there after this.”
Start Rocket expects to collect $25 million for the first round of investment until October 1, 2019 with the goals: product developing and design research (engineering and main tech solution developing), test main formation specifications, two first cubesats, control mission station, ground tests, fixing, airworthiness certificates, orbit technology demonstration, result and tests analysis.
Credit: StartRocket/Screengrab: Inside Outer Space
Cost of the orbital display operating time slot after the formation deploy is $200k for 8 hours.
Number of applications
According to the group’s website, there are a number of applications for display orbit:
- Displaying complementary messages or images from the orbit during global events for entertaining purposes.
- Bringing necessary information to the public on a broad-based perception level: from the simplest to the most complicated: such as logos and special product offers from brands.
- When phones don’t work, during zero visibility, power cuts and catastrophical emergencies – government can use the display for urgent notifications for the population.
For more information on their plans, go to:
For updated information, go to this Jeff Foust story:
Pepsi Drops Plans to Use Orbital Billboard
https://www.space.com/pepsi-drops-orbital-billboard-plans.html
Credit: CGTN
China is on the verge of selecting new crew members for its space station program.
To date, a total of 11 taikonauts or Chinese astronauts have gone into space.
Credit: CGTN
As reported by China Global Television Network (CGTN), Huang Weifen, who is in charge of training taikonauts, explains that China plans to select three individuals for its first crewed space station mission.
There are 16 active taikonauts in the current two groups. Only three will be selected to take part in the first piloted space station mission.
Credit: CGTN
Huang said as Chinese future space missions expand, they can even help train and cultivate other countries’ astronauts. She believes there will be more international cooperation on astronauts training and selection.
Credit: CGTN
China is planning to assemble its crewed space station next year. The orbital outpost is scheduled to become fully operational around 2022, according to the CGTN video. Since Chinese astronauts will spend at least three months on a space station mission, they are also expected to solve more emergencies.
To view the CGTN video on taikonaut training, go to:
https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d414e3363544f33457a6333566d54/index.html
Crash landing survivor? NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/MIT Laser Retro-reflector Array (LRA) for Lunar Landers.
Credit: SpaceIL/Courtesy Xiaoli Sun/GSFC
A NASA piggyback experiment may have survived the April 11 crash landing of Israel’s Moon lander, Beresheet. Overflight of the crash site by the U.S. space agency’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) should provide imagery of the impact area.
Additionally, an LRO-carried Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) will attempt to detect a NASA-provided laser retro-reflector array in the Beresheet wreckage zone. Called the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/MIT Laser Retro-reflector Array (LRA) for Lunar Landers, the ball-shaped device was located on the top side of the Israeli lander.
NASA experiment after installation (the array is mounted on the top of the spacecraft, lower left, at about 7 o’clock position).
Credit: SpaceIL/Courtesy Xiaoli Sun/GSFC
Smaller than a computer mouse, LRA is composed of eight mirrors made of quartz cube corners that are set into a dome-shaped aluminum frame. That array is lightweight, radiation-hardened and long-lived.
From the high-flying LRO, laser beams generated by LOLA would strike the device and then are backscattered from the lunar surface. For each laser beam, LOLA measures its time of flight, or range.
Detection attempts
“Yes, we believe the laser reflector array would have survived the crash although it may have separated from the main spacecraft body,” the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s David Smith, the principal investigator for LOLA and an emeritus researcher at NASA Goddard in Greenbelt, Maryland. LOLA will begin planning observations early next week, he said.
“Of course we do not know the orientation of the array, it could be upside down, but it has a 120 degree angle of reception and we only need 1 of the 1/2″ cubes for detection, but it has certainly not made it any easier,” he told Inside Outer Space.
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).
Credit: NASA/Goddard Science Visualization Studio (SVS)
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter project is proceeding with attempting to image the crash site with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera system, LROC for short, Smith said. Also, the LRO-carried laser altimeter will be making attempts to get a return from the array as originally planned, he said.
NASA is interested in dotting the Moon with many such retro-reflectors in the future. These would serve as permanent “fiducial markers” on the Moon, meaning future craft could use them as points of reference to make precision landings.
The Israeli lunar spacecraft weighed only 1,322 pounds, or 600 kilograms.
Credit: Eliran Avital
Chain of events
Preliminary data supplied by the engineering teams of SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) suggests a technical glitch in one of Beresheet’s components triggered the chain of events on April 11 that caused the main engine of the spacecraft to malfunction.
Without the main engine working properly, it was impossible to stop Beresheet’s velocity. The Moon lander overcame the issue by restarting the engine. However, by that time, its velocity was too high to slow down and the landing could not be completed as planned.
Israel’s Beresheet lunar lander imagery taken before crash landing on April 11.
Credit: SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI)
According to SpaceIL and IAI, preliminary technical information collected shows that the first technical issue occurred at 8.7 miles (14 kilometers) above the moon. At 492 feet (150 meters) from the lunar terrain, connection with the spacecraft was lost completely. At that time, Beresheet was moving vertically at 310 miles per hour (500 kilometers per hour), headed for an inevitable collision with the lunar surface.
The Beresheet spacecraft, whose name means “genesis” or “in the beginning” in Hebrew, was launched on February 21.
Meanwhile, the dream goes on! Morris Kahn, SpaceIL Chairman, the non-profit company that built Beresheet, announced today the launching of a follow-on lunar lander: Beresheet 2.0.
Go to video at:
