SpaceIL lunar lander mission - 2019 Options

[Phil Stooke]

I'm setting this up in preparation for the launch of SpaceIL's lunar mission, probably early next year. They have arranged a rideshare with Spaceflight Industries on a Falcon 9 launch early in 2019. Earlier they were saying launch in December, land on the Moon in February, so now I assume the landing might be delayed until March. This mission was originally going to be part of the Google Lunar X Prize, but that of course is now gone. It might be rekindled with a different sponsor (though I doubt it).

SpaceIL is the first of the GLXP teams to actually make it to a launch. For what it's worth, I expect Astrobotic to fly as well, and I think Team Indus and PTScientists may also get off the ground. I'm hearing things about Moon Express which cause me to doubt its chances.

More on landing sites shortly.

Phil

[Hungry4info]

From this tweet.

Just received from SpaceIL communication team what appears to be the last image #Beresheet spacecraft managed to beam to earth before it crashed on the moons surface

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[GoneToPlaid]

From this tweet.

LIVE BROADCAST URL:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMdUcchBYRA

This undated image was shown at 18:35 in the recorded live broadcast. Phil and Thorsten have correctly identified the lunar location as Hypatia A.

The Beresheet selfie photo was shown at 31:33 during the live broadcast. Further work shows that it could not have been taken during the descent.

Following is a listing of the events which I observed while reviewing the live broadcast video.

All times, below, are video recording time stamps.

18:35 A photo taken at an unknown time and lunar location is shown during the live broadcast.

Up until the following video time stamps, neither the telemetry indicator nor the horizontal velocity value is green. Altitude and vertical velocity are shown in yellow.

23:03 Telemetry indicator turns green. Sub State is Orientation.

25:04 Sub State changes to Braking.

25:20 "We are past the point of no return."

25:26 The Point of No Return indicator turns black.

25:52 Vertical velocity display turns green.

28:16 Telemetry indicator is no longer green.

28:20 Telemetry indicator momentarily turns green, then is no longer green.

29.37 Distance is shown as 210 km.

29:50 Distance changes to 385 km.

30:03 Distance changes to 370 km.

30:40 Telemetry indicator is green.

30:51 Distance is 314 km.

31:33 Beresheet selfie is shown. Altitude approx 22 km??? Telemetry is green.

31:50 Telemetry indicator is no longer green.

31:55 to 32:29 "[inaudible] kill it." "[More inaudible mission chatter] busy."

32:48 Telemetry screen is shown. Telemetry indicator is light yellow. Altitude is 14095 m. Horizontal velocity is 955.5 m/s. Vertical velocity is 24.8 m/s. Main engine is on. Horizontal velocity is light yellow. Other parameters are green, except for the telemetry indicator.

32:49 All engines are on.

32:51 All engines are off.

32:55 Main engine is on.

32:57 All engines are on.

32:59 Main engine is on. Distance is 183.8 km.

33:01 - 33:03 "IMUstein not okay."

33:02 All engines are on.

33:05 Main engine is on.

33:07 All engines are on.

33:09 Main engine is on.

33:11 All engines are on.

33:13 Main engine is on.

33:16 All engines are on.

33:20 Telemetry indicator turns green. All engines are off. All displays remain static (no change).

33:32 Telemetry indicator is no longer green. All engines are off. All displays remain static (no change).

34:24 Telemetry indicator turns green. All engines are off, yet supposedly turn on. Vertical acceleration on the Z axis is fixed at 0.6. "We currently have a problem in one of our inertial measurement units." Vertical velocity starts to steadily increase. Altitude continues to steadily decrease. Vertical acceleration on the Z axis becomes fixed at 0.6. Main engine probably is not on.

Telemetry indicator intermittently turns green and then turns light yellow, up until the following video time stamp.

34:56 Telemetry indicator is no longer green. Although all engines are shown as on, vertical velocity continues to increase. Vertical acceleration on the Z axis remains fixed at 0.6. Main engine probably is not on.

36:25 - 36:33 "We seem to have a problem with our main engine. We are resetting the spacecraft to try to enable the engine."

36:40 Telemetry indicator is green. All engines appear to be on, yet Z axis acceleration remains fixed at 0.6 m/s. Altitude is 678 meters. Horizontal and vertical velocities are 948.1 m/s and 130.1 m/s respectively.

36:44 Last telemetry data. Telemetry indicator is green. All engines appear to be on. Z axis acceleration changes to 0.7 m/s. Final altitude is 149 meters. Final horizontal and vertical velocities are 946.7 and 134.3 m/s respectively. Main engine does not appear to be functioning properly.