Genesis' last maneuver near Earth was successful. The next maneuver: capture the moon

The Beresheet spacecraft is on its way to an elliptical orbit suitable for the planned encounter with the moon, where the farthest point from the Earth is about 405 thousand km away. During the maneuver, the Beresheet's main engine was activated for about 60 seconds

Today (Tuesday, March 19.3.19, 14) at 30:405 p.m., a successful maneuver of the Berashit spacecraft was performed by the engineering team of SpaceIL and the Aerospace Industry. Berashit is on its way to an elliptical orbit suitable for the planned meeting with the moon where the farthest point from the Earth is about XNUMX thousand km away "from.

During the maneuver, the main engine of the Genesis was turned on for about 60 seconds. The spacecraft's systems are functioning as expected, it communicates with the control room in Yehud, the control and flight dynamics teams managing the trajectory planning were able to minimize the difficulties in the star trackers by adjusting the operating configuration of the trackers so that in all stages of the maneuver the trackers will be directed to space and not to the sun or the earth. Any such maneuver A lot of fuel is consumed, and therefore as the journey in space continues, the amount of fuel in the spaceship's tanks decreases, so this week we activated a drive wheel that stabilizes the movement of the spaceship so that the fuel churning in the tanks does not shake it. .

The CEO of SpaceIL Ido Antavi said in a press conference that was delivered by conference call: "At half past two we turned on the engines for about sixty seconds. The purpose of the maneuver was to increase the elliptical orbit of the spacecraft to an orbit with a peak height of 405 km. In fact, we are reaching the place where we are on the line where the moon circles the earth. The next step is a lunar capture, which will be carried out on April 4.""The spacecraft behaves As expected, it communicates perfectly, we planned a route and made updates so that we could make the update under the limit in the star trackers. We reduced this limit a bit by me Operation and change of several parameters. All in all, the amount of fuel in the tanks decreases as we planned. For this purpose, we prepared a flywheel or drive wheel, which stabilizes the movement of the spacecraft. We prepare To capture the moon and until then we will make several small course corrections to reach the exact point at the exact speed."

Ofer Doron, Space Plant Manager of the Aerospace Industry added: "The spacecraft is functioning well, we found ways to get along with the star tracker. It complicated our lives but we learned to live with it. This is the last time we perform a maneuver near the Earth. The next maneuvers will be in free space. Right now The next significant thrill will be the capture of the moon on April 4, where there is a very, very complex maneuver that must be successful. Doron also added that there is a certain risk in the maneuver The capture of the moon. "If you plan badly, the spaceship will fly into open space and we will say goodbye to it, God forbid. We will update for the next update." Doron concluded.