Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu promises state aid to second moon mission

2019-04-14 10:13:16

(MENAFN- Trend News Agency) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised on Sunday that the national government would help send a second lunar lander to the Moon, Trend reported citing Sputnik.

"We plan to launch Beresheet 2. The State of Israel took part in the first launch and will do it again. I hope this time we will succeed", he said at a cabinet meeting.

Morris Kahn, a billionaire who founded Israeli firm SpaceIL, announced Saturday that preparations for the mission would begin this weekend. The Beresheet 2 spacecraft will try to achieve what its predecessor could not after an engine failure caused it to crash on the lunar surface.

If successful, Israel will become the fourth nation after the Soviet Union, the United States and China to put a spacecraft on the Moon. It will also be the first privately built craft to do so.

The first Beresheet ("Genesis" in Hebrew) spacecraft, which had been launched by Israel in late February, crashed on the moon due to technical problems during its final descent to the surface.

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