Kahn, a co-founder of Amdocs, was a key player in the SpaceIL project and Israel Aerospace Industries; the spacecraft reached lunar orbit in 2019 but crashed during a landing attempt, leaving an educational and infrastructural “effect”
Entrepreneur and philanthropist Maurice Kahn, co-founder of Amdocs and one of the names most closely associated with the Israeli spacecraft project “Beresheet,” passed away on the night of December 31, 2025 to January 1, 2026. Kahn was a central figure behind the move that brought SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries to lunar orbit and the landing attempt in April 2019 — an attempt that ended in a crash, but marked a leap forward in the engineering and educational capabilities of the Israeli space ecosystem. He also contributed to the establishment of the Maurice Kahn Marine Research Station at the University of Haifa.
“Beresheet” – Funding, Partner Recruitment, and Turning an Idea into a Space Voyage
Kahn's involvement in "Beresheet" did not end with a symbolic contribution. Throughout the years of development, he served as a financial anchor that allowed the project to move forward, and also a "magnet" that helped attract additional donors and partners. The project was launched as an effort by the SpaceIL association, and was later led in partnership with Israel Aerospace Industries, in a model that was unusual in the local landscape: a private-civilian initiative that attempts to carry out a lunar mission at a significantly lower cost than is customary in national space programs.
Alongside the technological interest, Kahn repeatedly pushed the educational dimension: using the mission to spark imagination, attract students to science and engineering subjects, and show that even a small country and a civil society organization can “play” in an arena where superpowers operate. Over the years, these things became what some of the project’s people called the “Genesis effect” — not a single scientific achievement, but a cultural-educational ripple effect that was destined to last even after the mission ended.
The Moon Run and the Crash: A Partial Achievement with a Real Price
“Beresheet” was launched on 21.02.2019 (as a shared payload on Falcon 9) and gradually advanced to lunar orbit through a series of orbit passes and elevations. On 11.04.2019, during the landing attempt, the spacecraft lost control and crashed on the lunar surface. The event closed the window for the first Israeli landing, but left behind a series of achievements: interstellar navigation, operating a spacecraft in lunar orbit, and demonstrating the ability to develop a complex space platform within a relatively limited resource framework.
In retrospect, the decision to “go for it” is examined on two levels. On the one hand, the failure to land is a fact, and it highlighted the level of risk inherent in space projects—especially when trying to shorten schedules and save costs. On the other hand, the very fact of reaching lunar orbit and managing an independent mission to the final stage was seen as an infrastructural leap: experience gained by teams, suppliers, and engineers, and which served as the basis for a renewed discussion about space as a technological-economic field and not just a national symbol.
The planned sequel – and now remains open
After the crash, SpaceIL attempted to advance a follow-up mission (“Beresheet 2”). Kahn himself continued to support the initiative and had previously stated his willingness to continue assisting, but according to reports from previous years, the program was halted/cancelled at some point, partly due to funding and project structure challenges. His death now sharpens a practical question: Will a new combination of funding, partners, and infrastructure be found to return an Israeli landing attempt to orbit—and will the engineering and organizational lessons from 2019 be translated into the next generation of missions?
Khan's connection to, and defense of, Lim
Along with his contributions to space, Kahn was also identified with the sea – its research and preservation. At the University of Haifa, there is Maurice Kahn Marine Research Station, which serves as a base for environmental research in the Mediterranean Sea and bears the name of someone who helped promote a marine research infrastructure in Israel. This connection also had a family and public dimension: his son, Benji Kahn, founded the “Zlul” Association, which has worked over the years to promote the protection of the marine environment – and, among other things, led a public struggle against fish cages in the Gulf of Eilat. Kahn’s connection to the water is also evident in his early business initiatives: he was one of the founders of Coral World, which established the underwater observatory in Eilat and made the “underwater world” accessible to a wide audience.
The Maurice Kahn Marine Research Station at the University of Haifa said that Kahn accompanied the station's activities for years "with faith, support, and warm friendship," and that his legacy will continue to be expressed in research and the next generation of students and researchers working to understand and preserve the Mediterranean Sea.
From his statements in media interviews:
- On the educational value: Kahn described the moment when children dressed up as astronauts on Purim as a sign that the mission had “done its thing” beyond technology.
- On success and failure in space: He repeated the message that the main thing is to try and move forward even when the end result is not perfect.
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