SpaceIL will take another shot at the moon

When at first you don't like totally succeed, try, try again. SpaceIL plans to do just that with a new lander, Genesis 2.

After sending an unmanned rocket to the moon and failing the landing on Thursday, Israeli billionaire Morris Kahn, the main funder of the project, is ready for another go at it. Kahn, is South African-born and made the announcement of the project during an interview on Israel's "Meet the Press," on Saturday.

Work on the second spacecraft will begin immediately and that is really cool.

SpaceIL is a nonprofit that has led the effort to put Israel's first spacecraft, Genesis, on the moon. If the project is successful, and I have strong vibes that it will be, it will be the world's first privately funded effort to put a lander on the lunar surface.

Genesis almost accomplished the mission as a live feed from SpaceIL's control center in Yahud, Israel showed the progress. All systems were a "go" as the reverse engines fired for the soft landing. But suddenly communication was lost and the engines shut down.

Ground control managed to reestablish communication and the engines restarted, but by then it was too late and the spacecraft crashed into the moon’s surface at 500 km/hr. [about 310 mph.]

While it’s unlikely all the data will be recovered given the lost connection, SpaceIL determined that a faulty acceleration sensor caused the problem, which led to the engines shutting down early.

The team will take a more in-depth look over the coming week to learn as much as possible about what went wrong.

Despite the failure to soft-land Genesis, the atmosphere at SpaceIL’s control center was surprisingly upbeat on Thursday night.

“If at first you don’t succeed, you try again,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in attendance. Why not? What could it hurt?

In an interview shortly afterwards, Mr. Kahn said, referring to a plaque that was on the spacecraft, “The flag of Israel and the slogan ‘small country, big dreams’ is on the moon. The slogan ‘Am Yisrael Chai’ [‘the people of Israel lives’] is on the moon. I think we’ve done a lot. I’m happy.”

The first Genesis was built by SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) with funding from private donors like Mr. Kahn.

The next attempt will be a national project, Mr. Kahn says, with funds gathered from the public. Prime Minister Netanyahu also promises the government’s help this time around.

Netanyahu said, at the start of the weekly Cabinet Meeting on Sunday, “We intend to launch ‘Beresheet II'...

“This proves, first of all, our abilities, our aspirations and the fact that we are not stymied by failures. The difference between winners and losers is that we do not give up. We will try again and again until we succeed. I estimate that we will have a better chance of succeeding the second time.”

Mazel tov, Israel.


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