Israeli spacecraft crashes on the moon

Israeli spacecraft Beresheet has crashed onto the moon after a series of technical failures during its final descent.

People watch a screen showing a picture taken by the camera of the Israel Beresheet spacecraft of the moon surface as the craft approaches and before it crashed. Picture: AFP

Israeli spacecraft Beresheet has crashed onto the moon after a series of technical failures during its final descent, shattering hopes of a historic controlled landing on the lunar surface.

The unmanned lander suffered periodic engine and communications failures during the landing sequence, which lasted about 21 minutes.

Beresheet, Hebrew for “In the beginning”, had travelled through space for seven weeks in a series of expanding orbits around Earth ­before crossing into the moon’s gravity last week.

The final manoeuvre on Wednesday brought it into a tight orbit around the moon, about 15km from the surface at its closest. From there it was a short, nailbiting and ultimately disappointing conclusion.

“It seems that a failure in our ­inertial measurements unit caused a chain of events in the spacecraft avionics which cut off the engines and caused us to lose the mission,” said Opher Doron, general manager of the space division at Israel Aerospace Industries.

So far, only three nations have succeeded in carrying out a “soft”, or controlled, landing on the lunar surface: the US, the Soviet Union and China.

Beresheet would have been the first craft to land on the moon that was not the product of a government program.

It was built by state-owned IAI and Israeli non-profit space venture SpaceIL with $US100 million ($140m) funded almost entirely by private donors.

Still, the spacecraft achieved some milestones.

“It is by far the smallest, the cheapest spacecraft ever to get to the moon,” Mr Doron said. “It’s been an amazing journey, I hope we get a chance for another one.”

Reuters