Moon Landing by Israel’s Beresheet Spacecraft Appears to End in Crash

A small spacecraft that has captured the imagination and excitement of people in Israel and around the world appears to have crashed into the moon on Thursday.

“We had a failure in the spacecraft,” Opher Doron, the general manager of Israel Aerospace Industries’ space division, which collaborated on building the spacecraft, said afterward. “We unfortunately have not managed to land successfully.”

Moon Landing by Israel’s Beresheet Spacecraft Appears to End in Crash

I haven't been following this too much but i guess they were really, really confident they'd succeed. I guess better luck next time. If they'd succeeded they would have been the 4th country to land on the moon.

The Irony 😟

Looks like the only test they will be running will be how big of a crater a failed lander can make.

originally posted by: Quantumgamer1776
Looks like the only test they will be running will be how big of a crater a failed lander can make.

Or if the Moon echoes as much now as it did the last time.

A mission that cost 100 million to win 20 million.

Didn't lose 80, lost 100.

Uhmmmm, beer sheet queso and blue cheese...

**DROOL**

If I recall correctly, it was already having some issues right after being put into orbit. So it should really not be a surprise that it did a bellyflop onto the moon. Beyond that it is possible that the localized gravity at the landing location was higher than expected, orbits around the moon tend to decay rather quickly due to the unstable nature caused by a lot of rather large density changes.

issue with sensors
www.timesofisrael.com...
unstable moon orbits due to local gravity differences
science.nasa.gov...

I was listening to the broadcast live. All was well until 20 seconds before landing. It didn't really crash, like you'd see here on Earth, because the Moon's gravity is much less. Speculation is that the vehicle is Probably still in one piece, but not upright.

Still there was lots of cheering and words of satisfaction, even after the "crash" was confirmed. This was the first private mission to make it to the moon. Fixing the landing aspect should be relatively easy. Then, do it again. Lots of money floating around in business and individual wealth these days.

a reply to: carewemust
I think I prefer, unexpected undershoot on hover slam (or UUHS for short).

though I missed it because I was paying attention to a launch today :/

Just think how much the hundred million dollars could have done for the citizens of Israel. It could have helped feed a real lot of the poor people for a long time. I think they should consider this as a message from god to quit doing stupid stuff like that.

originally posted by: rickymouse
Just think how much the hundred million dollars could have done for the citizens of Israel. It could have helped feed a real lot of the poor people for a long time. I think they should consider this as a message from god to quit doing stupid stuff like that.

Wasnt this a private endeavour? I think the investors had a choice and IMO this did more for the Israeli people than donating food.

originally posted by: dubiousatworst
If I recall correctly, it was already having some issues right after being put into orbit. So it should really not be a surprise that it did a bellyflop onto the moon. Beyond that it is possible that the localized gravity at the landing location was higher than expected, orbits around the moon tend to decay rather quickly due to the unstable nature caused by a lot of rather large density changes.

issue with sensors
www.timesofisrael.com...
unstable moon orbits due to local gravity differences
science.nasa.gov...

How much variance can there be? The moon doesn't have kratons or other really thick plate structures, does it?

a reply to: Tempter
about half of a percent difference., which can be a rather large difference when relating to the accuracy of senors.

en.wikipedia.org...(astronomy)

The Luna-10 orbiter was the first artificial object to orbit the Moon and it returned tracking data indicating that the lunar gravitational field caused larger than expected perturbations presumably due to 'roughness' of the lunar gravitational field.[4] The Lunar mascons were discovered by Paul M. Muller and William L. Sjogren of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in 1968[5] from a new analytic method applied to the highly precise navigation data from the unmanned pre-Apollo Lunar Orbiter spacecraft. This discovery observed the consistent 1:1 correlation between very large positive gravity anomalies and depressed circular basins on the Moon. This fact places key limits on models attempting to follow the history of the Moon's geological development and explain the current lunar internal structures.

At that time, one of NASA's highest priority "tiger team" projects was to explain why the Lunar Orbiter spacecraft being used to test the accuracy of Project Apollo navigation were experiencing errors in predicted position of ten times the mission specification (2 kilometers instead of 200 meters). This meant that the predicted landing areas were 100 times as large as those being carefully defined for reasons of safety. Lunar orbital effects principally resulting from the strong gravitational perturbations of the mascons were ultimately revealed as the cause. William Wollenhaupt and Emil Schiesser of the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston then worked out the "fix"[6][7][8] that was first applied to Apollo 12 and permitted its landing within 163 m (535 ft) of the target, the previously-landed Surveyor 3 spacecraft.[9]

The most precise landing on the moon was done by Chang'e 3. This was done via a different method that utilized horizontal control while hovering and a image based system rather than a system based on other types of sensors that are potentially effected by gravity.

www.researchgate.net...'e-3_Powered_Descent_and_Landing

In this new scheme, the gray-image-based coarse obstacle detection and avoidance is first performed in a relatively large flight range, and then the 3-D digital-elevation-map-based precise obstacle detection and avoidance is adopted in a relatively small range [4]. To efficiently reduce the fuel consumption, the lander only performs transient hovering during the precise avoidance imaging. Horizontal maneuvering and vertical descent are carried out simultaneously in other subphases of hazard detection and avoidance, which proved the best and successful choice for Chang’e-3 flight mission

Wasnt this a private endeavour? I think the investors had a choice and IMO this did more for the Israeli people than donating food.

Other countries have been successful. They can be the failure guys. Big moral boost.

Maybe a new term for moon crashes, "Going Israeli".

oeps.... are they now gonne make an retaliation mission to the moon?

Nice picture of the lander before it’s, er, accident. Now what is that odd shape in the far right hand corner of the picture? Looks quite regular in shape. Would be massive. Doesn’t look like the regular moon surface or regality. Interesting. a reply to: dug88

originally posted by: roadgravel

Wasnt this a private endeavour? I think the investors had a choice and IMO this did more for the Israeli people than donating food.

Other countries have been successful. They can be the failure guys. Big moral boost.

Maybe a new term for moon crashes, "Going Israeli".

ALL other space nations have had failures much bigger then this.. and that is not even counting the once that have cost lives

And this being a private mission.. its a huge step in space exploration and a great success, even only getting to the moon

originally posted by: ressiv
oeps.... are they now gonne make an retaliation mission to the moon?

Nahhh..
The moon is not trying to invade their country and knife stab them at night as far as I know...

But the Falcon Heavy worked and all 3 boosters landed properly. Watched it with the wife last night and she was like NO WAY are they going to land them. Then when the 2 came back side by side she said we need to go see the next one. YES!!

Saw the first shuttle take off and the last now a FH!!






www.youtube.com...

One small step for Mankind...one GIANT HEAP of smoldering twisted wreckage for Israel!