Israel To Become First-ever Country To Send Privately-funded Probe To Moon

Israel is hoping to become the fourth country—after the United States, the former Soviet Union and China—to land a spacecraft on the moon, with the unmanned Beresheet set to launch Thursday night (20:45 EST) from Florida’s Cape Canaveral. The $100 million project is a joint venture between SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries and was funded almost entirely by donations. If successful, Beresheet—named after the first chapter in the Hebrew bible—will be the first privately-funded probe to make a lunar landing, and at 350 pounds will be the smallest and cheapest-ever to reach the closest celestial body to Earth. The four-legged craft will hitch a ride on Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 commercial rocket, before detaching and beginning its seven-week journey to the moon ending April 11. Beresheet is designed to measure magnetic fields that will help scientists study how the moon was formed some 4.5 billion years ago. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin is scheduled to host a pajama party with students at his Jerusalem residence to watch the launch in the early morning hours (local time) on Friday.