An Israeli spacecraft rocketed toward the moon for the country’s first attempted lunar landing, following a launch on Thursday night by SpaceX. Israel seeks to become only the fourth country to successfully land on the moon, after Russia, the US and China. The spacecraft called Beresheet, Hebrew for Genesis or “In The Beginning” will take nearly two months to reach the moon.
“We thought it’s about time for a change, and we want to get little Israel all the way to the moon,” said Yonatan Winetraub, co-founder of Israel’s SpaceIL, a nonprofit organisation behind the effort.
Within an hour after lift-off, Beresheet was already sending back data and had successfully deployed its landing legs, according to SpaceIL.