The command, to activate a sensor that measures the speed and acceleration of the spacecraft, led to a chain of reactions during which the main engine was turned off and its continuous operation was prevented. This is what SpaceIL CEO Ido Antabi says in a conference call with journalists
Preliminary findings indicate that a command entered into the spacecraft's computer during the landing led to a chain of reactions during which the spacecraft's main engine was turned off at the beginning and its continuous operation was prevented.
In a conference call with journalists in the morning (Wednesday), SpaceIL CEO Dr. Ido Antavi said. "Immediately after the event, we started an investigation, this is part of a culture of learning and learning lessons, transparency in front of everyone. We have completed the first phase of the investigation and the first phase focuses on understanding the facts and the sequence of events. We went in and tried to understand what happened. We did this with the help of the telemetry that came from the spacecraft and here it was a bit complex. We received the telemetry through two communication channels that worked during the landing both through JPL and through SSE. We had a lot of communication breaks and we had to connect the things (meaning to merge the signals that came through the two channels into one time sequence AB) The teams worked on it intensively and managed to connect the things and we see the picture in a perfectly reasonable way.
"The spacecraft functioned as expected until the start of the event in a completely autonomous manner. The event started when we received a failure message of the IMU2 component, a component that measures accelerations. In fact this is the first time this component has given us such a message during the mission. After this happened an activation command was sent from the control room. It was this activation command that caused a chain of events in which the main engine was stopped and there was no ability to return it to continuous operation due to a malfunction in our electronic interface box. When it is impossible to start the main engine, the spacecraft cannot make a soft landing as planned in an autonomous way and this is the fate of the mission." Antabi added.
The SpaceIL team and the aerospace industry continue with the engineering investigation and the details of the event and the entire mission. In the coming weeks, the final findings of the investigation will be published.
SpaceIL Chairman Morris Kahn: "I am proud of the SpaceIL engineering team and the aerospace industry for their amazing work and dedication. Such cases are an integral part of such a complicated and pioneering project. What is important now is to learn optimally, look at mistakes with courage and move forward. This is our message to the people of Israel and this is the spirit of Genesis."
SpaceIL and the aerospace industry stated regarding Genesis 2: "Bereshit 2 has been launched, Morris Kahn and the task force he established have already held several meetings on the subject and are in the process of planning the project outline, which includes at this stage the completion of the investigation on the events of Genesis 1, the formulation of the budget, the determination of schedules, Resources, personnel and everything required to realize the project. As mentioned, we hope that within two years we will be able to complete it.
The video recording of the live broadcast from the landing events, the malfunction is reported in minutes 33-39.
More on the subject on the science website
- Morris Kahn will light a torch on the eve of Independence Day together with the founders of SpaceIL
- SpaceIL chairman Maurice Kahn: will lead the Genesis 2 construction project
- The problem of the three bodies - why, despite the crash, this is a great achievement
- The main engine of the Genesis stopped working, apparently a crash landing
- About a week before the crash: "We have reached a parking orbit around the moon"
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In the transcript of the conversations in the control room (see the following article to the current one, which was also published by Avi Blizovsky on the "Hidan" website), the instruction not to activate IMU1 was clearly heard, and after a few minutes they again said not to activate IMU2. For your information, IMU are the two sensors for the acceleration and the speed of the "Bereshith".
Was the instruction not to activate the two most important sensors for landing intentional, or did someone accidentally activate them incorrectly, and therefore it was necessary to perform a reset from the control room?
I have never seen a less clear explanation than this. What do you mean "due to a malfunction in our electronic interface box"? One should not underestimate the intelligence of the public and simplify concepts. Just say what happened.
Was a command sent from the control room by the operator. If so, what was the command and what was its purpose?
Was the command the cause of the crash?
What was the failure of the accelerometer?
Is it possible that the acceleration sensor went crazy because of the fuel? Or just broke down during landing, 15 minutes out of over a month of traffic???
This moon is already boring. Today's mission is the conquest of Mars!
"After this happened, an activation command was sent from the control room."
So was it human error or was the above command computerized and automatic?