Page 6 - TORCH Magazine #13 - April 2019
P. 6
SMALL COUNTRY, BIG DREAMS
Israel touches the moon
On 11 April 2019, after eight years of planning, 47 days of flight time and over 4 million miles travelled, Israel’s
lunar spacecraft began its descent to the moon’s surface.
The landing was broadcast live from the SpaceIL’s mission control and astronomers in the Netherlands
and Germany also independently monitored the landing using radio telescopes, mapping out the Doppler curve as Beresheet (“Genesis” in English) made its descent. These astronomers tweeted pictures of their readings in real-time and with amazing accuracy, but in the final moments of the planned landing, their readings had a blip, “Uh oh... A break in the Doppler curve. That’s not good...” one tweeted.
Photo: Long exposure of SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Beresheet lunar lander for SpaceIL, February 21, 2019
