Israel aims to launch a moon lander through nonprofit SpaceIL

An illustration of
“Sparrow,” a 1,300-lb robotic lunar lander that could make Israel
the fourth country ever to touch the moon’s
surface.

SpaceIL

• SpaceIL, a nonprofit backed by a billionaire in
  Israel, has built a 1,300-lb
  lunar lander called “Sparrow.”
  
  
  
• The team tried to win $20 million from the Google Lunar
  XPRIZE, but the competition
  ended without a winner.
• Regardless, SpaceIL says a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch
  its robot in December for a moon-landing attempt in February,
  2019.
• SpaceIL’s mission could make Israel the fourth country
  to achieve a soft moon landing.

The
Google Lunar XPRIZE launched in 2007 with tens of millions of
dollars in prize money and the hope of spurring a private company
to land a robot on the moon.

The competition ended in March 2018
without a winner, but its ultimate goal may be achieved
within six months.

SpaceIL, a nonprofit organization founded by Israeli billionaire
Morris Kahn, is on track to pull off the first commercial lunar
landing early next year. This would make Israel the fourth
country to soft-land a spacecraft
on the moon; only the US, Russia, and China have landed
robots there. (Japan, India, and Europe have crashed probes into
the lunar surface, though.)

SpaceIL formed in 2011 as a Google Lunar XPRIZE team. It has
since attracted about $95 million in funding (about
one-third from Kahn) to build “Sparrow”: a 1,300-lb moon robot
equipped with cameras, magnetic sensors, and technology that can
beam data back to Earth.

In July, the team announced a launch date aboard a Falcon 9
rocket built by SpaceX. If that launch happens as planned,
Sparrow will blast off from Cape Canaveral, Florida in December
and touch the lunar surface on February 13.

“SpaceIL aims to set in motion an ‘Apollo effect’ in Israel,” the
team said in a press release. “To encourage
the next generation of Israeli children to choose to study
science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM); to
change their perception of these subjects; to generate a sense of
capability; and to allow them to dream big dreams even in our
small country.”

How Sparrow will get to the moon

A
Falcon 9 rocket launches toward space.

SpaceX via
Flickr (public domain)

The
moon is about 239,000 miles away from Earth, but the biggest
challenge in getting there is harnessing enough energy to climb
out of our planet’s gravity field. For example, sending three
Apollo astronauts, a small space capsule, and a two-person lunar
lander vehicle required a
36-story Saturn V rocket filled with millions of pounds of
fuel.

To achieve a lunar landing on a tight budget, SpaceIL claims
Sparrow “will be the smallest spacecraft to land on the moon to
date.”

Sparrow is nearly 5 feet tall when tucked into position for
launch, making it relatively easy to squeeze aboard a rocket. The
robot is slated to accompany a larger, undisclosed payload on the
Falcon 9 rocket.

Pricing tables from
Spaceflight Industries — the company in charge of arranging the
rocket rideshare — suggest that launching Sparrow might cost
about $22.5 million.

SpaceIL declined to share how much it’s actually paying for the
launch, but the total is likely far less than the
$62 million cost of an entire Falcon 9 rocket launch.

To lower Sparrow’s weight and launch price, SpaceIL chose a
roughly 2.5-month trip from launch to landing. (By comparison, it
took Apollo astronauts just four days after launch to land on the
moon.)

“Once it disengages from the launch rocket, the spacecraft will
begin orbiting Earth in continuously larger elliptical orbits,
ultimately covering a total distance of 9 million kilometers [5.6
million miles],” SpaceIL said. “This long and complex course was
chosen as it will allow completing the journey to the moon with
minimal fuel consumption.”

About 75% of Sparrow’s mass is made up of fuel, which will propel
it into lunar orbit — a trip that will take the probe about four
weeks. After a few weeks of looping around the moon, a final burn
of Sparrow’s rocket engine will bring it down to the surface,
where it is expected to land autonomously. The entire landing
process should take about 15 minutes.

“The spacecraft will use various sensors to measure its location
and height in relation to the moon’s surface,” SpaceIL said. “The
ground team will not be able to intervene during the landing
process.”

What the first private lunar lander will do

The “Sparrow” lunar lander
designed and built by SpaceIL.

SpaceIL

Sparrow will navigate its lunar landing using autonomous software
and a computer about as powerful as a smartphone. During its
descent, the lander is supposed to record video and panoramic
photos while beaming footage to a control room at Israel
Aerospace Industries.

“It will be possible to operate all the spacecraft’s systems from
this control room,” SpaceIL said.

Part of Sparrow’s surface mission is to take measurements of the
moon’s magnetic field for the Weizmann Institute of Science at
the University of California Los Angeles.

However, Sparrow’s precise launch date is still unknown — even to
SpaceIL — as is the proposed February landing date. That’s
because the spacecraft will be undergoing final testing in vacuum
chambers and other facilities through October, and then it needs
to be shipped to Cape Canaveral. If problems with these
activities don’t delay a launch, weather or technical issues
could.

“It’s too soon to tell,” a representative for SpaceIL said in an
email to Business Insider. “At the moment, we have a sliding
window for the launch between November 20 and December 20.”

SpaceIL said money-raising efforts for the mission continue, but
added “the launch is ensured” to happen.

“Once it completes its mission, the spacecraft will remain on the
moon, proudly displaying the flag of the State of Israel,” the
group said. “SpaceIL hopes that the next generation of engineers
and scientists will be able to bring it back to Earth.”