SpaceIL lunar lander to launch early 2019 on Falcon 9

[ecarfan]

Israeli moon lander to ride SpaceX rocket in Spaceflight’s first move beyond low Earth orbit

The SpaceIL lunar lander weighs 600kg/1323lb. It’s a secondary payload. Primary is thought to be an Indonesian telecom sat PSN 6

It’s unclear to me how the SpaceIL vehicle is going to get into a translunar injection orbit. There is a SpaceIL video embedded in that Geekwire article page. Here’s an image from the video showing the vehicle separating from the F9. It does not make sense to me. The vehicle comes out of the base of a section below the fairing. That doesn’t look like any F9 ever built. And then the vehicle fires its own engine to send it on its way to the moon?

 

[e-FTW]

Considering we are a two weeks from launch (NET 3/18), we should get a launch thread spun up.
But I'll let @Grendal do that, as he/she was going to change the template for booster details in launch thread titles. And I don’t have a lot of info!

 

[Cosmacelf]

Looks plausible, but I'm no rocket scientist. From: SpaceIL | מנחיתים חללית ישראלית ראשונה על הירח

 

[Yggdrasill]

The planned orbits suggest the lander has a relatively low thrust rocket engine, probably to keep weight down and maximize fuel.

The mission seems pretty realistic to me. It should take something like 4-4.5 km/s of delta-V, going from GTO to moon surface. A 585 kg lander with 425 kg of fuel should have something like 4.4 km/s of delta-V assuming an Isp of 350. I assume they've done the math and have enough delta-V.

If you look at the actual useful payload delivered to the moon, it looks like it's only like 2 kg. Almost the entire lander is propulsion.

 

[Cosmacelf]

The planned orbits suggest the lander has a relatively low thrust rocket engine, probably to keep weight down and maximize fuel.

The mission seems pretty realistic to me. It should take something like 4-4.5 km/s of delta-V, going from GTO to moon surface. A 585 kg lander with 425 kg of fuel should have something like 4.4 km/s of delta-V assuming an Isp of 350. I assume they've done the math and have enough delta-V.

If you look at the actual useful payload delivered to the moon, it looks like it's only like 2 kg. Almost the entire lander is propulsion.

Yeah, but that’s HUGE bragging rights for just 2 kg. “What did you do?”, “oh, just landed a ship on the moon...”

 

[Yggdrasill]

Yeah, but that’s HUGE bragging rights for just 2 kg. “What did you do?”, “oh, just landed a ship on the moon...”

Oh, definitely, and even 2 kg can produce worthwhile science. Plus there will be cameras and such, so it will be cool to watch.

 

[Nikxice]

March 5th photo of Israeli Beresheet/Earth taken from 23,000 miles. The lander recently completed a fourth burn which will increase the apogee to 250,000 miles. An upcoming burn on April 4th should get it into a preliminary lunar orbit. I couldn't find the exact time of day, but the landing is scheduled to occur in three weeks, on April 11th. Should be fun to follow. Historic, because no non-government space company has ever done this before. Soon two privately partnered space companies can grab bragging rights to being the first to land on another world.

 

[ecarfan]

Fantastic photo! Haven’t seen a new version of that view in awhile. Beautiful

View attachment 388767

March 5th photo of Israeli Beresheet/Earth taken from 23,000 miles. The lander recently completed a fourth burn which will increase the apogee to 250,000 miles. An upcoming burn on April 4th should get it into a preliminary lunar orbit. I couldn't find the exact time of day, but the landing is scheduled to occur in three weeks, on April 11th. Should be fun to follow. Historic, because no non-government space company has ever done this before. Soon two privately partnered space companies can grab bragging rights to being the first to land on another world.

 

[Nikxice]

Beresheet has just completed a successful six-minute lunar orbit braking burn. This has reduced it's velocity relative to the moon by about 600 mph, allowing lunar gravity to capture the spacecraft in an elongated orbit. The landing is scheduled for next Thursday, although success is far from assured. Privately funded on a shoestring budget, there's not much in the way of redundancy, basically no backups. One faulty sensor could sink whole ship. Not surprised to learn that during the final approach to landing the engine will be switched on and off to control the descent rate. It can’t be throttled.

 

[Nikxice]

It now appears that Beresheet will be the opening act for Thursday's FH launch. The lander is scheduled to touchdown between 3pm and 4pm EDT. Because of ongoing lunar orbit maneuvering, the exact time won't be known until just a few hours before landing. The approach is designed to produce a zeroed out sink rate 15 feet above the lunar surface. At that point the engine is cutoff with 1/6 g doing the rest. Article with a YouTube link for watching.
Here's How To Watch Live On Thursday As Israel Aims To Become The Fourth Country To Land On The Moon

 

[Nikxice]

SpaceIL is now targeting Beresheet landing for 3:25pm EDT today. Setting up for a 4 for 4 rocket landing day!

 

[favo]

Looks like they lost contact with the spacecraft and were unable to land successfully.

 

[destructure00]

Bummer

 

[e-FTW]

That is a shame.
Last picture it sent here:
Elad Ratson on Twitter

 

[Grendal]

Here was the play by play from SpaceFlightNow:
Live coverage: Israel’s Beresheet lander lost during descent to the moon – Spaceflight Now
Peter Diamandis still awarded the $1 million Lunar X-Prize to them.

 

[Grendal]

Scott Manley has a nice breakdown of what happened. The second half is on the FH launch.