Channels

Israeli spacecraft gets final element before 2019 moon launch

Israeli engineers on Monday added the final element to a spacecraft destined for the moon - a digital time capsule - and said they aimed to land the craft early next year, somewhere between the landing sites of Apollo 15 and 17.

 

It will be the first mission of its kind since 2013 and, if it is successful, Israel will be the fourth country to carry out a controlled "soft" landing of an unmanned vessel on the moon.

 

Since 1966, the United States and the former Soviet Union have put around a dozen of them on the moon and China last did so in 2013.

 

"The spacecraft is completely built, tested ... and will be ready to ship to Cape Canaveral in a few weeks," said Ido Anteby, CEO of the SpaceIL non-profit that has led the project.

 

Israel has launched satellites before, but this is the first longer-range Israeli spacecraft of its kind.

 


פרסום ראשון: 12.17.18, 16:26