First data were received in the control room in Yehud, the legs of the spacecraft were deployed as planned and the spacecraft began tests in orbit while cruising to the moon. In the coming days, tests will be conducted on all the subsystems in Genesis and in about nine hours, it will begin its first maneuver and orbit around the Earth
Early this morning (03:45) the first Israeli spacecraft to cross the Earth's orbit and is supposed to land on another celestial body was launched to the moon. Bereshit was developed by the SPACEIL association and built jointly with the Aerospace Industry.
This morning, Friday, the partners in the SpaceIL project and the Aerospace Industry announced that the Israeli spacecraft "Bereshit" was successfully launched. First data were received in the control room in Yehud, the legs of the spacecraft were deployed as planned and the spacecraft began tests in orbit while cruising to the moon. In the coming days, tests will be conducted on all the subsystems in the Berashit, and in about nine hours, it will begin the first maneuver and orbit around the Earth.
As mentioned, the launch was smooth, Bereshit was the first to be released from SpaceX's Falcon 9 carrier rocket, after the first stage of the rocket returned and landed on a rig in the heart of the Atlantic Ocean, and the second stage finished firing the engines. A short time later, the engineers in the control room at the aerospace industry facilities in Yehud began to contact Berashit, and even carried out the process of opening the landing legs, so that it would be ready for the landing on April 11.
However, warning lights still came on in the control mission computers. In a briefing for journalists, the director of the space plant of the aerospace industry, Ofer Doron, said that one of the components that follows the stars to verify the position of the spacecraft against the background of the stars did not make contact. Fortunately, this is a component that has redundancy, and most of the components in the spacecraft, including the critical ones, do not have redundancy.
The spacecraft entered an elliptical orbit around the moon, with the closest point to the Earth at a distance of about 230 km and the farthest point, at an altitude of 60 thousand km. On Sunday, the spacecraft's engines will be turned on for the first time, for tens of seconds to place it in a trajectory from which it will be possible to raise the Genesis to a higher altitude each time, until finally it will reach an altitude of about 400 thousand km, and at a certain point it will be captured by the gravitational force of the moon, Attack it and you'll eventually land on April 11th.
During the night, hundreds of people gathered - employees and volunteers of the SPACEIL association and the aerospace industry, as well as the biggest donor - Maurice Kahan, who donated about 30 million dollars, out of the total cost of the project - 95 million dollars. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also spoke shortly before the launch.
In a conversation with the Hidan site, Yariv Bash, one of the three founders who drew the first draft of the project on a napkin at the end of 2010, explains: a good start to the mission, the hard part will be capturing the moon and the landing in general will be madness, but we started off on the right foot. As for the star tracker, it is not a space component that we developed, but a ready-made component, which, if I am not mistaken, is part of CubeSat satellites, and therefore has redundancy.
Bash described how in the beginning they had to put their feet up, and in 95% of the meetings they were treated with disapproval. "It takes a lot of courage to stand up to that," Bash says. After joining the project of the entrepreneur Morris Kahan, who also brought the other donors, the situation was a little easier.
As you remember, SPACEIL took Google's LUNAR XPRIZE competition, and competed mainly with commercial companies from all over the world. In the end, the competition ended without a winner, but the Israeli association decided to continue the project and complete the spacecraft and the launch procedures even without the prize, mainly because the main goal of the association is educational - to attract students to study mathematics, science and engineering, and a publicized project was the best way to do this. Indeed, students from among the project trainees were present at the event.
Efi, the project manager on behalf of the Aerospace Industry, explained in an interview to the Yadan website that the spacecraft went through the launch phase with complete success. We spread our legs, opened all the valves and the propulsion system, we did a small test of the propulsion system and it works perfectly. We are currently working to raise the lower part of the elliptical orbit - the perigee, which is currently at an altitude of 213 km to an altitude of 250 km on Sunday, probably, and we will continue to raise the farther part called the apogee little by little up to an altitude of 400 thousand km and there we will perform The capture of the moon, we will use the gravitational force of the moon and begin to enter orbit around the moon.
The landing legs opened in excellent condition, the computer as well (Developed in Israel by the Ramon Chips company and created in Tower) worked great.
Not an easy way because one of the problematic things about this spaceship is that it has no redundancy. Each system is usually fully redundant - computer, walkie-talkie, dual control system. Here we have a risk of general failure as a result of failure in one system but this is the so-called new space. We are building the components that will be smaller, cheaper the spacecraft, very small, very cheap and it is based on the idea of nano satellites.
But is it much bigger?
To get to the moon using a standard launch method, that's actually what we went through, it's impossible with little fuel. You need a lot of fuel because we need to develop a very high speed to reach the moon and another large delta V to slow this speed down to zero and land. This is what determined the size of the spaceship and therefore it grew. If you look at the spacecraft you will see that it is one big propulsion system, four big fuel tanks. The propulsion system weighs 400 kg and the entire spaceship itself when empty weighs 160 kg so the fuel component is significant. All other systems are very small and miniaturized. It is very complex to do it, and if we land on the moon with such a thing, it is something that will serve as an example and a model. All this is thanks to three founders and a man who has contributed with all his soul and money for so many years and he is not a young man - Maurice Kahan, I take my hat off to him, he saw the children's education before his eyes. He did it out of pure philanthropy, kudos to Maurice Kahan.
Maurice Kahn, president of the SpaceIL association: "The successful launch put Israel on the map - we have already made history. We are looking forward to an amazing journey of 60 days, to make world history. We all have our fingers crossed for Genesis. Thanks to the amazing team of Space EL and the aerospace industry. Israel on the map and this time in space"
Ido Antavi CEO of the SpaceIL association: "We arrived at the launch with a ready and tested spacecraft, on its way to a very challenging mission. I am proud of the SpaceIL and IAA teams, who brought this achievement through professional work, determination and cooperation. If all goes well, the spacecraft will enter a cruise orbit around the Earth about an hour after launch. During the next two months, the spacecraft will make the challenging route on its way to landing on the moon"
Nimrod Shafer CEO of IAI: "This morning we successfully launched the Berashit spacecraft into space, after years of hard and strenuous work by the engineers at IAI and SpaceIL. The vision of the founders of the association, of Mr. Morris Kahn, the other donors and of the aerospace industry, is coming to fruition these days when all the children and residents of Israel are talking about space and technology - this is the true greatness of Genesis. Good luck on your way to the moon!”
More of the topic in Hayadan:
- We want to replicate the Apollo effect: encouraging science and engineering studies
- The Google Lunar X Prize contest will end without a winner
- The first news about SPACEIL – December 2010, right after the announcement of the idea: An Israeli group is raising a budget to land a nano-satellite on the moon as part of the Lunar Xpriz competition
10 תגובות
Launching from an airplane is not very practical:
An airplane that raises a bird reaches a height of about 20 km.
A huge cargo plane (Boeing 747) can fly at a speed of about 900 km/h.
A fighter plane like the F-15 can reach 2650 km/h, but its carrying capacity is limited.
To reach a low orbit you need to reach an altitude of at least 200 km, and a speed of about 28,000.
The advantage that an airplane gives is not very big, and can help to launch a not very big satellite.
The Space-X launcher that sent the lander to the moon reached a speed of 900 km/h in 48 seconds, and a height of 20 km in a minute and a half (then its speed was about 2400 km/h).
Opinions differ as to how much it can help, and there are still those who try to build all kinds of exotic launch systems based on light missiles launched from airplanes. The point is that with Space-X's launcher where the first stage can be lowered and reused, the main incentive for the system is dropped from under their feet.
In my opinion, the feasibility of this today is in favor of launching a large number of small satellites using cheap missiles, at very short notice by various armies.
Thank you, Ipsum and Shaked.
Since the answers were helpful and detailed, another question:
Since the parts of a satellite that are not fuel or an engine are shrinking year by year, and since the most wasteful step in terms of energy and the most dangerous is reaching orbit, is there an advantage in mounting the satellite on an air missile that will be installed on a fighter plane and launching it from its maximum flight height?
Thanks
I also thought to Tomi that Rohm should not be present at all, not to mention the funding, but I came to know that the state did contribute to the funding, about 7 shekels out of 100.
Moreover, respect must be given, he was not present on the main stage but as one of the spectators in the audience.
SpaceIL's website is a disgrace.
The latest update - from the day before the launch, we are already two days behind.
They didn't hold any press conference where the heads of the project explained what was happening, what was the status of the spacecraft.
There is no live update on the spacecraft's location.
There is no update on the upcoming accelerations, when and what their purpose is
They do not bring up this screen that we saw during the launch, with all the green and blue indicators of the state of the spacecraft and do not explain what each one of them means and what the depositor of each sub-system is.
There is no animation that updates in real time with the current position of the spacecraft relative to the Earth and the Moon.
This is not a secret security project whose status should not be published.
This is supposed to be an educational project.
Most of the money from donors came mainly for this reason.
And now seven weeks of technological - physical - space discussion are missed.
The exact simulation of the spacecraft was done by foreign YouTubers using the kerbal space program.
This space simulation game could be used as a tremendous educational lever.
Instead, there are inaccurate articles in the various media channels, accompanied by hundreds of talkbacks by idiots who have trouble reading comprehension and are unable to understand that this is a private mission, not funded by public funds.
The loss is heartbreaking.
The truth is, because there was no better picture except for the missile, which shows nothing about Israeliness. I used the illustration of the spacecraft on the moon several times.
Hey Eitan.
Indeed, the reason is saving fuel, which means huge savings in money (sending more fuel into space = burning a lot more fuel).
In every gravitational orbit (its shape is an ellipse), there is one point where acceleration will be most effective for raising the altitude of the orbit - it will be done on the opposite side: if I want to get closer to the moon (raising the apogee), I must "shoot" precisely when I am closest to the Earth (perigee).
Since the spacecraft is unmanned, time is less of a factor here and you can always take advantage of the window of opportunity I described above to make effective maneuvers.
In Apollo, apparently, there are three people sitting inside a can, so you have to consider time as well...
I will not add more words. Attached is a link to a video on behalf of SpaceIL on the subject
More than saving fuel is saving weight. For each additional kg of cargo sent to the moon, a lot of money must be paid, which creates a huge incentive to save every shekel. It must be remembered that all the money came from donations (and not from a government budget) on the one hand, and there is no incentive to shorten the journey time to the moon on the other hand, among other things because there are no astronauts on board the spaceship to take care of their oxygen and food as was the case in Apollo.
The savings are not only expressed in fuel savings, but also in the reduction of the containers that have to carry it. It is also possible to use a small (and lighter) engine, which will only be sufficient for landing on the moon, and will be able to push the spacecraft only a little in the entire circle towards the moon. In every lap, the spaceship approaches back to the Earth and thus is helped by the Earth's gravitational assistance, which saves even more fuel. The spacecraft finally reaches the moon at the minimum possible speed, saving quite a bit more fuel by slowing down a bit.
It took the Apollo spacecraft 3 days to reach the moon. 50 years later, the arrival time is two months.
Is the only reason for this to save fuel?
What is the reason for the route you chose?
Why are you attaching a photo of a politician on an election campaign here?
The Prime Minister should not have been there.
He should not have been invited.
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I believe that the spaceship will succeed in landing there despite the complexity of the task and who knows, maybe we will make it a regular practice and send a spaceship every week...