Israel's Beresheet lunar lander has crashed on the moon

An ambitious trip to the moon has ended with the Beresheet spacecraft likely in pieces. The craft, which was set to be the first privately funded lander on the moon’s surface, suffered a fatal engine failure as it was attempting to land and crashed to the lunar surface instead of touching down gently.

Because it was done on a minimal budget – about $100 million, less expensive than any other moon mission – Beresheet had very few of the backups and contingency plans that characterise big government-funded missions. That made it a risky venture.

Run by Israeli non-profit SpaceIL, the mission was funded mostly by private donors because of the requirements of the Google Lunar X Prize, which offered a cash prize to the first venture not funded by a government to land on the moon, but ended without a winner in January 2018. The X Prize Foundation announced in March that it would still give SpaceIL $1 million if Beresheet landed successfully.

After the crash, X Prize founder Peter Diamandis tweeted that SpaceIL would still be given the $1 million prize to continue their work.

The spacecraft faced small hiccups after its February launch with its navigation and communication systems, but ultimately was able to enter orbit around the moon. And on 11 April, during the spacecraft’s landing sequence, it suffered failures in its communications system and in its main engine. By the time the engine was brought back online, Beresheet was moving too fast to brake before it smashed into the moon.

Despite its demise, Beresheet was still impressive. It made Israel just the seventh nation to put a craft in orbit around the moon, even if that craft did not ultimately land. “The saying ‘failure is not an option’ is not true – we need to fail in order to learn,” says space consultant Laura Forczyk. “They failed in a way that still succeeded in a lot of their goals and in inspiring a lot of people.”

And this will not be Israel’s first and last moonshot. “If at first you don’t succeed, you try again,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from SpaceIL’s mission control in Yehud, Israel. “Israel will land on the moon.”