Israel’s Beresheet spacecraft snaps incredible photo of far side of the moon ahead of country’s first lunar landing
The probe is expected to make history for Israel later this month as it aims to land on the moon
PHOTOGRAPHS of the far side of the moon have been taken by Israel’s Beresheet spacecraft.
The probe is expected to make history for Israel later this month as it aims to land on the moon and make the country the fourth nation to complete a successful soft lunar landing.
Beresheet entered the lunar orbit on Thursday and took some incredible pictures of the moon.
The probe should land on the moon at 9pm GMT next Monday.
The spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at the end of February this year.
There are no astronauts on board.
Beresheet, which is the Hebrew word for beginning, was created by Israeli nonprofit company SpaceIL and the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries.
If Beresheet reaches the moon successfully then this will be the first private mission to have done so.
The spacecraft was created after Google launched the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition which ran from 2007–2018 and was organised by the X Prize Foundation.
The competition had to be scrapped, despite Israel being one of the final five competitors, because none of the finalists were going to reach the 31 March, 2018 deadline for a Moon launch.
However, the creators of Beresheet decided to push ahead with their development and launch the spacecraft themselves when it was ready.
The probe aims to land in the Moon’s northern hemisphere and will share data it collects with Nasa.
Beresheet is taking a time capsule to the moon which will be left there indefinitely.
The time capsule is made up of three disks which have data on them including symbols such as the Israeli flag, the country’s national anthem, dictionaries in 27 languages, a bible and a children's book about the mission.
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