Discovery channel is all set to premiere a one-hour exclusive series, ‘Return to the Moon:Seconds to Arrival’ on April 22 which will follow the men and women of SpaceIL on its mission to land the first privately funded spacecraft on the surface of the moon.
SpaceIL was founded by three young Israeli engineers, Yariv Bash, Kfir Damari, and Yonatan Winetraub, and is one of the organisations that participated in the international Google Lunar XPRIZE, which challenged scientists to build, launch, and land an unmanned spacecraft on the moon.
In 2017, SpaceIL, the lone representative from Israel, became one of the five finalists, but in 2018, Google closed the contest without naming a winner. Undeterred, SpaceIL soldiered on with help of public and private funding.
Their attempted lunar landing was the culmination of eight years of intensive collaboration between SpaceIL and Israeli Aerospace Industries.
The craft, which could have been the smallest to ever land on the moon, launched as a secondary payload on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a two-month journey.
‘This is an extraordinary story of a team which attempted to do what only nations have done before. Telling such stories of human endeavor is an integral part of our mission. It is what Discovery stands for,’ said, Zulfia Waris, vice-president, Premium & Digital networks, Discovery Communications India.
‘The show marks the launch of a new series ‘Discovery Exclusive’ which will feature never seen before content on topical global events that are shaping our world,’ Zulfia said.
