How did the Israel moon mission fail?

So, What Really Happened to Israel’s Moon Mission?

Back in April 2019, the world held its breath as Israel took a shot at landing a spacecraft on the Moon. Imagine the excitement! If successful, they’d have been only the fourth nation ever to pull it off. This wasn’t some government behemoth either; it was Beresheet (“Genesis” in Hebrew), a plucky little lander dreamed up by the non-profit SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). Sadly, it ended in a crash. A real heartbreaker. But hey, even though it didn’t stick the landing, it was still a huge deal – the first privately funded lunar mission, period. So, what went wrong? Well, after digging into the data, it turns out a mix of tech gremlins and, well, a little human oopsie, led to the bumpy arrival.

More Than Just a Landing: A Mission of Inspiration

Beresheet wasn’t just about planting a flag. Sure, the plan was a soft landing, followed by some cool science, like using a magnetometer (courtesy of the Weizmann Institute) to measure lunar magnetic fields. But the real mission? To light a fire in the hearts of Israeli kids, get them jazzed about science and engineering. Think of it as their own “Apollo Effect.” And get this – they even packed a digital time capsule loaded with over 50 million pages of stuff! The Bible, Wikipedia, kids’ drawings, all sorts of Israeli goodies. Talk about a message to the future!

The Long and Winding Road (with a Few Hiccups)

The journey started in February 2019, hitched a ride on a SpaceX Falcon 9. Instead of a straight shot, Beresheet took the scenic route, looping around Earth in bigger and bigger orbits until the Moon finally pulled it in. But smooth sailing? Not exactly. Just days after launch, the computer decided to throw a party and reboot itself! This meant scrapping a planned maneuver. Turns out, some think radiation might have zapped the electronics box connecting the computer to everything else. This little issue kept popping up like a bad penny.

The Crash: A Perfect Storm of Problems

The real drama started during the descent, about ten nail-biting minutes before touchdown. An inertial measurement unit (IMU) – basically, an acceleration sensor – went haywire. Now, here’s where things get tricky. Someone entered a manual command, trying to fix the IMU. But, whoops! It accidentally told the main engine to shut off. No engine, no brakes. Beresheet was basically free-falling. They tried to fire it back up, but it was too late. The poor thing was too close to the ground, going way too fast.

The post-mortem revealed that the manual command, meant to help the IMU, triggered a chain reaction, killing the engine. Communication went dark when Beresheet was only about 150 meters (that’s like 492 feet) above the surface, hurtling along at 500 kilometers per hour (310 mph)! Ouch. The crash happened around 7:23 PM, Israel time.

Why Did It All Go Wrong?

Looking back, it was a bunch of things piling up:

• Tech Troubles: That IMU glitch was the first domino to fall.
• Human Element: The manual command, while well-intentioned, had a nasty side effect.
• Budget Blues: Let’s be honest, space missions are expensive. Beresheet’s $100 million price tag (including the launch) was pretty lean compared to other lunar attempts. This might have meant cutting corners on backup systems and redundancies.

A Bumpy End, But a Bright Future

Okay, so it crashed. But Beresheet wasn’t a failure. Israel still became only the seventh country to orbit the Moon! And SpaceIL snagged a Moonshot Award from the Google XPrize Foundation for being the first private group to even reach lunar orbit. More than that, it sparked something in Israel. Kids got excited, dreams got bigger. And you know what? The president of SpaceIL, Morris Kahn, isn’t giving up. Beresheet 2 is already in the works, ready to take another shot at that lunar landing! Sometimes, you just have to dust yourself off and try again.