Israel’s first ever spacecraft, Beresheet (or, “Genesis”) successfully performed a decisive maneuver on Thursday keeping the craft on track to land on the moon next Thursday.
Genesis has now entered an elliptical orbit around the moon, which will gradually reduce in time to one orbit every two hours.
Had Genesis flied too fast, the spacecraft could have jumped out of both the earth’s and the moon’s orbit and head into the sun’s orbit, bring an end to the mission.
#Beresheet is in an excellent orbit! during the critical maneuver yesterday Beresheet took some amazing photos of the far side of the #Moon!
picture A: The far side of the moon during the maneuver at 470 km Hight.
picture B: The far side of the moon with Earth in the background pic.twitter.com/3brI45PuyY— Israel To The Moon (@TeamSpaceIL) April 5, 2019
During the maneuver, Genesis’s speed slowed from about 8,500 kilometers per hour (5,200 mph) to 7,500 kilometers per hour (4,600 mph).
Sunrise Video from #Beresheet ☀️ From the #spacecraft's point of view. In the video, #earth can be seen hiding the #sun & then exiting the same shadow created by the Earth and the sun's exposure. This process creates a kind of sunrise image! #IsraelToTheMoon @ILAerospaceIAI pic.twitter.com/y6IR80oz73
— Israel To The Moon (@TeamSpaceIL) March 24, 2019
Its final maneuver will be landing in the Sea of Tranquility, which was also the landing site for America’s first manned moon landing on July 20, 1969.
Dream with us. On the 11/4/19 #Israel will land on the #moon. Let's take part in history! #IsraelToTheMoon @ILAerospaceIAI pic.twitter.com/RQpe2YqcxN
— Israel To The Moon (@TeamSpaceIL) April 4, 2019
Moon capture! 🇮🇱
Critical lunar orbit capture took place successfully. #Beresheet is now entering an elliptical course around the #moon, as we get closer to the historical landing #11.4.📷 Eliran Avital #Israeltothemoon @ILSpaceAgency #spaceil pic.twitter.com/1dYEezTrS8— Israel To The Moon (@TeamSpaceIL) April 4, 2019
