In order to become the fourth country to land a spacecraft on the Moon, the Israeli spacecraft called ‘Beresheet’ crashed during the final touchdown after the apparent failure of its main engine.
According to BBC, the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) spacecraft suffered some technical problems due to which the failure occurred.
The main aim of the mission was to take pictures and conduct experiments.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was watching the landing mission from the control room, stressed that Israel would try again and succeed in two or three years.
“The Israeli spacecraft will land on the Moon in one piece, two and a half to three years from now, write it down,” Netanyahu said, addressing the mission team after the failure.
Nevertheless, Israel is the seventh nation to reach the moon. The landing, costing about 100 million US dollars, was the first such commercial lunar mission.
After government space agencies from the former Soviet Union, the US and China have made successful moon landings, Israel hoped to become the fourth country and first privately funded mission to land a spacecraft on the Moon.
