The assessment, beyond the expected difficulties in financing the project, does not contain any claims because NASA is planning progress on the Artemis project to return to the moon, which will include, among other things, the construction of test spacecraft - out of 11 companies that received funding from NASA * If an Israeli spacecraft were to be built, it would be "another one"
The board of directors of the SpaceIL association today sent a message about its members' decision to cancel the Genesis 2 mission. "The mission to the moon was successfully achieved, Genesis 2 should be a different mission," the message said.
"The members of the board of directors of the SpaceIL association held an in-depth discussion regarding the nature of the mission worthy of Genesis 2, and concluded that the attempt to repeat a trip to the moon is not challenging enough."
"Beresheet's journey to the moon, despite the hard landing, is etched in the consciousness of Israel and the world as a successful, ground-breaking journey, with many meanings for the nature of the future journeys of humans to the moon. The feedback received from many professional parties in the world in the last weeks since the landing indicated that the mission was seen as an extraordinary success, and broke many world records, such as: the spacecraft that was built with the lowest budget, that made the greatest distance to the moon, the smallest to reach it and the only project to the moon that was entirely financed by means private."
"Repeating a similar journey does not set a standard required of groundbreaking missions. Therefore, it was decided to look for another significant challenge. The members of the executive committee also noted that the association will share with the public in the process, as it has done so far in the national mission to the moon. "
"At the same time, the association will continue to focus on establishing the values of the Genesis effect among the younger generation in Israel."
Concerns in this direction already began on the night of the landing, or rather the crash, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the main contributor to the Genesis project, Maurice Kahan, argued on stage about who would finance the next mission. A few days later, Kahan announced in a television interview that the public is the one who will finance the next spacecraft (crowdfunding).
Artemis - competition from NASA
But even beyond the budgetary aspect there are also other aspects - if the US really wants to return to the moon by 2024, it will have to (and this is also detailed in the Artemis program) carry out many launches to test the technologies for manned and unmanned flights. As we reported on the science website, NASA will award 45 million dollars to 11 companies that will help return man to the moon in 2024, and also about the fact thatNASA selects the initial commercial lunar landing services for the Artemis program.
Each of these companies will examine a different aspect that has already been tried on a small scale in the Genesis spacecraft and finally these technologies will be integrated into the manned and robotic spacecraft that will fly to the moon as part of the Artemis project. , if and when the construction of Genesis 2 was complete, in a period of at least two years, it would meet demonstration spacecraft of American technologies on the moon.
However, in order to promote the private space industry, NASA requires those companies to obtain at least 20% of the project's cost from private parties. Even if it was launched again with private funding, it was not unusual.
Now it remains to be seen where the next SPACEIL mission will go. Is it to another destination in space, or perhaps to examine new technologies around the earth or even missions to solve technological challenges on the earth itself.
More of the topic in Hayadan:
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My friend's mother works at Space AL and they are going to ship Genesis 2
There is a science fiction story with a similar idea, it's called face tension
To send a tiny satellite from a living cell - which will fly into the brain and record dreams from it. It is farther than Mars and closer to God. And no one did.
CONAN: You might be too young to know. When a fire broke out during practice inside a NASA spaceship on the ground, and three astronauts were killed, the public got a full breakdown of what happened, the reason (use of clean oxygen in the atmosphere inside the spaceship), and what would be fixed. I remember reports in Israeli newspapers, which included the cause of the malfunction. The same level of prowess was given in the reports of the two space shuttles that crashed and the vanity mirror malfunction. At least in the case of the first spacecraft that crashed, the head of the investigation team was a scientist (a well-known physicist) from outside the administration. The investigation reports have been published in full. No space accidents were reported in Russia, and there were a few, but who wants to compare it to Russia?
When Ilan Ramon was killed, there were serious allegations that it was known that there was a great risk that the spaceship would crash upon landing, due to damage to the heat-insulating ceramic plates during takeoff. No action was taken, and this was hidden from the population. NASA's claim was that no action could be taken to save the astronauts. But after the fact the whole sequence of events was presented to the public, including the reason for the malfunction. Includes photos of the event at takeoff. including the inaction of NASA managers. Since there was no practical solution to fix the problem, they closed the shuttle project.
Another important issue is the educational matter. A youth who reads about the launch of the spacecraft and the malfunction at the end will not develop an interest in science and technology if there are no explanations of the development processes, and explanations of malfunctions. Closing the matter of the crash without any explanation makes a young reader see science as an incomprehensible black hole. What is interesting? The details of the malfunction and its causes will make the youth with mental capacity think about the matter, create a discussion, and eventually come to study science or engineering.
Herzl,
You are wrong and misleading: Is NASA - right from the beginning of its activity in the 50s in the 20th century - when it had less than 50% success in rocket launches (such as Project Mercury), in addition to all the bigger and bigger "blunders" it had Since then in almost every mission of theirs, most of which there was a real fear for the lives of the astronauts (and even today, during the construction of the International Space Station) - have they given any information about the reasons for the failures? The answer is "no"! The American public, who financed and continues to finance all of NASA's experiments out of their own pockets (in the aggregate this is a sum of money in the amount of hundreds of billions of dollars, according to the value of the dollar today) sometimes did not receive any report or explanation, and some of NASA's failed launches were even hidden and not reported rule! The American public trusted and still trusts NASA and its scientists, even at the cost of blatant censorship from time to time (and now you will also know what went wrong in the space programs of the USSR and China). So why do you still think SpaceIL is obligated to give you and the world a full report on this mission?
Understand that this was the first and only spacecraft built in Israel (again, this is the only spacecraft that was launched to the moon without government funding, i.e. "free" for everyone - except for the private investors), which failed in the last 10 kilometers of its journey, after traveling more than 8 million kilometers m in space on its way to the moon (and not "only" the 500 km that each of the spacecrafts of the USA, the USSR and China traveled, with full government funding), during which incredibly precise planning was done which also required real-time course corrections ( Like after the misfire when starting the engine for the first time), with amazing and accurate navigation to an extent you wouldn't expect.
to me. Purat the commenter.
You were indeed right. Much more important than "successfully landing on the moon" is to restore credibility!! Honesty and modesty are the king's way here on our land. At the time, the disciples of "Vah Tsenah" led the sect "MBS Harali" and the like and brought the State of Israel to serve as a global example in many fields. This is how we should go back and behave both in space and on earth and it is important to define the task of "Genesis 2" in this way.
CONAN: Take the example of the FACON 9 explosion, after which a thorough investigation was conducted and all conclusions were published and explained. Here, too, a private company, which owes nothing to non-shareholders. But the Americans are not stupid - hiding the reasons for the failure collapses the trust of their consumers in the company. The US market is built on trust. A company that loses consumer trust closes down pretty quickly. This does not happen in Israel, unfortunately. Consumers act like sheep being led to the slaughter, a mental matter. Mistakes happen wherever people do something, it's part of humanity. But hiding mistakes is not the right response, especially when the result of the mistake was something that cannot be hidden. The malfunction of the star cameras was also not explained, although in my opinion it was a fairly simple mistake/forgetfulness (it seems to me that they did not install the BUFFLE, a kind of collar that does not allow the sun's rays to reach the lens).
Herzl: You don't work for SpaceIL, which is a private company - and according to Kahn will remain so - and you didn't invest a single shekel during the eight years of building Berashit, so where did your brazen and brazen demand to hold them accountable (or As you put it: "still waiting for an orderly investigation") about the malfunctions during the mission of "Bereshit"??? Do SpaceIL owe you anything? And maybe these guys are a little smarter than you and already know what the mission's failures are and how to get around them in the future, not to mention the possibility that they have already started the "proper investigation" of the first malfunction (in which the spacecraft's computer rebooted itself and caused the first engine start to be missed)? Maybe SpaceIL simply does not want to share their information with the Israeli and global public - and I emphasize again that this is a private company, they did not receive a single shekel from the state - as expected from any normal private company with such a sophisticated and complex IP?
Besides, as mentioned below, there are so many things to learn about our solar system and so many important tasks (scientific and commercial) that have not been carried out so far, for example the study of the composition of asteroids for the mining of rare metals that will be delivered to Earth by robots - and for such a purpose there is absolutely no need to perform a soft landing on the moon.
What is missing is an orderly analysis of what happened and why it happened. Without it, no new space project can be started. In the army this action is called "investigation".
Even if it was a stupid mistake, it should be investigated, understood and published.
But it seems to me that here is an example of the aviation industry's tendency to whitewash things and try to hide failures, which I witnessed a few decades ago when I was a soldier. Apparently the organizational behavior there has not changed since then.
I estimated in the response on this website that the fault was caused by the fuel in the tank wading. That is, when the spaceship began to rotate, waves were created in the fuel. This caused wild oscillations of the entire spaceship, the accelerometers went crazy and the computer turned them off and shut down the engine. But I don't really know how the fuel tank was built and if such a possibility was considered during the planning stage. Still waiting for an orderly investigation.
Hard landing? Or rather a crash...
Idea: a small space telescope (perhaps the smallest) controlled by a community of amateur astronomers (primarily those who contributed a lot to the project as part of the crowdfunding). This might actually be the mournful equivalent of the small photography satellites developed in Israel.
A proposal for a task.
To place a lighthouse in space at twice the distance from the moon, for global communication missions, and to "peek" into the depths of the universe.
A. When will you proofread the articles properly?
B. How long are clickbait titles cheap? The task was changed, not canceled
third. By and large they are right. But Avi Cohen is also right. that they find something else that includes the moon
d. What other option do they have? Entering orbit is not challenging, they will not be able to reach Mars
No, no and not!
I don't care if NASA lands on the moon (they already did that). Israel should land and not crash on the moon.
You haven't yet been able to successfully complete the first challenge you set for yourself, so now it's already "small for you"?
Sorry but that's an excuse. Do you want a more interesting challenge? Please: land a mobile vehicle on the moon, or a satellite that orbits the moon and sends a live feed! Or land on the "dark side" of the moon.
Not "groundbreaking" enough? Combine everything together - a satellite orbiting the moon and a mobile vehicle on the dark side of the moon!
With all due respect for the achievement, ""The mission to the moon was successfully achieved" is a wild exaggeration not to say a lie. Perhaps it is necessary to mention: the mission was to land on the moon, not crash on it.