SpaceX successfully sends Israel’s historic moon mission on its way
The first privately funded moon lander mission blasts off ready to make history.
by Eric Mack and Jackson Ryan / Cnet
On Thursday evening, just after 5:45 p.m. PT,
a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched a small spacecraft on
its way to the moon from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. And if the
little lander, known as Beresheet, makes it all the way to the lunar
surface, it'll mark several milestones that've been years in the
making.
SpaceIL, the Israel-based nonprofit that's been working on the lander for eight years, is one of the
original Google Lunar XPrize teams. Though the competition
ended last year without a winner, SpaceIL is now poised to be the first among nearly 30 teams to make it to the moon on its own anyway.
For
SpaceX, the launch and retrieval of the Falcon 9 first stage was one of
the most challenging returns to date. Weather conditions were extremely
poor, but the reusable booster
successfully landed on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship
eight minutes after liftoff. This is the third time this particular
booster has been sent up and successfully come back to Earth and,
according to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk,
the highest re-entry heating to date. The booster will fly for a fourth time in a planned in-flight abort test later this year.
Read entire article and see videos here:
https://www.cnet.com/news/spacex-space-x-beresheet-moon-mission-israel/
