The creators of "Bereshita" will receive a million dollars for landing on the moon. But not from Google

Rates for the private Israeli space missionSpaceIL, which created the Bereshit lunar landing module, which is currently heading towards the Earth satellite, has grown quite well. If everything goes as planned and on April 11, the Bereshit robotic module makes a soft landing in the lunar crater of the Sea of ​​Clarity, then this will not only make SpaceIL the first private company that succeeds USA and China, which managed to land a spacecraft on the surface of the moon), but also allow it to earn good money.

Organization X Prize Foundation promised to pay SpaceIL $ 1 million in case of a successful landing of the vehicle on the surface of the satellite of our planet.

“The mission of SpaceIL is demonstrating democratizationscope of space research. We are optimistic about this project, considering it as the first domino knuckle, the fall of which will open the way and launch the whole chain reaction of commercial missions to the Moon and beyond, ”said Peter Diamandis, founder and CEO of X Prize, in his statement

Non-profit organization X Prize Foundationholds competitions aimed at new technological discoveries and achievements in various fields. Space has become one of these spheres. As part of the Google Lunar X Prize competition, its participants were asked to create, send, land a spacecraft on the Moon’s surface and conduct some activity with it (move 500 meters along the satellite’s surface, take photo / video and send this material to Earth) . The total prize fund of the contest was $ 30 million. The first team that would cope with this task would receive the bulk of this amount. The competition ended last year, but the winner was not determined - none of the participants could prepare their boarding module for the deadline set by the competition.

One of the competitors was the Israeli company SpaceIL, founded in 2011.

“Despite the fact that the Google Lunar X Prize Foundationturned out to be unclaimed, we are very pleased that we were able to stimulate various teams from around the world to develop their ambitious lunar missions. Therefore, we are proud to announce that we can celebrate the achievements of SpaceIL with this Moonshot Award, ”added X Prize CEO Anush Ansari in the same statement.

The X Prize Foundation added that this is not"One-time action". The organization will consider the possibility of encouraging other private companies to take on such ambitious missions to disembark spacecraft on the surface of the moon.

A small 1.5-meter landing module "Bereshit", which from Hebrew means "at the beginning," was launched to the Earth satellite using the Falcon 9 launch vehicle of the US company SpaceX on February 21.
During its five-week journey to the moon modulemade several corrective maneuvers to get on the trajectory of rapprochement with the satellite. The device must go into orbit of the moon on April 4. The module will land on the surface a week later.

The total cost of the mission, including the launch, cost the organizers about $ 100 million. The bulk of the amount managed to attract at the expense of private investors.

It is expected that the module will be able to collect somescientific information about the moon. The project aims to inspire the younger generation of Israelis to a greater interest in science and technology. It is also noted that on board the "Bereshita" contains a digital copy of the archive with thirty million pages of human history and culture. This "lunar library" was provided by the Arch Mission Foundation, which set a goal to keep backup databases with information about all the knowledge and achievements of mankind in different parts of the solar system.

You can discuss the news in our Telegram-chat.