Israel’s hopes to be the fourth nation to reach the moon were dashed when spacecraft ‘Beresheet’ failed to land last night.
The privately-funded Israeli organization SpaceIL announced on Twitter that the landing had failed at 9 pm.
An Israeli spacecraft has crashed into the lunar surface, ending the first privately funded attempt to land on the moon https://t.co/fLfndi0qeC
— The Guardian (@guardian) April 11, 2019
The main engine failed, causing the spacecraft to crash.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was watching from the control room near Tel Aviv, said:
“If at first you don’t succeed, you try again.”
Perhaps the moon had concerns about #Israel’s tendency to occupy & annex.
#Beresheet pic.twitter.com/5QJ9Be9MfN— Hala Jaber (@HalaJaber) April 12, 2019
The joint venture between SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries cost a total of $100 million and was an attempt to pave the way for low cost-space travel.
Israel's annexation of the Moon delayed… https://t.co/GzADA65Dxq
— Patrick Gavin Duffy (@patrickgduffy) April 11, 2019
Beresheet was launched on February 22, 2019, from Cape Canaveral in Florida and took weeks to reach the moon – far longer than previous missions which took a matter of days.
Some Twitter users took to the internet to make jokes about Israel’s attempts to annex the moon, in reference to their illegal occupation of Palestine.
(MEMO, PC, Social Media)
