Israel Space Agency director general Brig. Gen. Uri Oron and Italian Space Agency president Prof. Teodoro Velente today signed a memorandum of understanding for collaboration on Space IL's Beresheet 2 mission. The joint budget for the mission has not yet been decided, and will soon be set in talks between the parties, but it is estimated that it will be over €10 million. The announcement was made during the 20th Ilan Ramon International Space Conference, held today in Tel Aviv with the participation of senior figures from the Israeli space industry and community.
The Beresheet 2 mission will perform two landings on the moon and scientific experiments on and around the moon, including mapping, soil exploration, and the physical phenomena of its environment. It will also include a mother spacecraft that will orbit the moon for five years, and will be a platform for interactive scientific activity in Israel and around the world. The current agreement will allow Israeli and Italian researchers to collaborate in a variety of scientific and technological fields. As part of the mission, new technologies such as landing sensors, communications, navigation, and control will be developed.
Oron told "Globes" today: "Italy is one of the leading countries in the field of space. They have huge experience and also enormous resources and they invest over €1 billion each year in space. The Italians, like few other countries are seeking a presence on lunar missions. About 20 lunar missions are planned in the next 7-8 years, and participation in them is important for every country, for technological, commercial and political reasons."
What missions is Israel involved in?
"In addition to the Beresheet mission that we are leading, we are part of the Artemis program together with NASA, and beyond the spacesuit developed for the mission by the Israeli company StemRad, we are currently examining with NASA what other Israeli technologies may be needed for the mission. There is currently no plan for another Israeli astronaut to participate in NASA's manned missions."
Beresheet crashed on the moon
Non-profit organization SpaceIL was founded in 2010 to participate in the race to land an unmanned spacecraft on the moon as part of the Lunar X Prize competition. The organization managed to attract Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and billionaire investor Morris Kahn to the effort. The project amassed funding of $95 million, despite Google's competition restrictions, which set a maximum for government support for the project. Additional donors were: Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, Sami Sagol, Lynn Schusterman, Stephen Grand, Sylvan Adams, and the general public through a crowdfunding project.
The Beresheet moon spacecraft was launched in February 2019, but instead of landing safely, it crashed onto the moon in April, so that technically, the mission was not a success. However, the organization defined its primary role from the beginning as educational, and thus it was very successful. Its activities have been widely reviewed, and it has been conducting thousands of activities in schools in which it harnesses children's interest in space. Israel was the seventh country to succeed in bringing a spacecraft to the moon.
Shortly after the crash, it was announced that there would be another project to send a probe to the moon, with a similar budget. However, in June 2019, Maurice Kahn announced that he would not support the project. However, the project received support from the Ministry of Science, the Blavatnik Family Foundation, and now also from the Israel Space Agency. In 2021, it was announced that $70 million had been raised for the mission.
When SpaceIL first launched, there was little interest in landing on the moon, and space agencies were more focused on other missions, including reaching Mars. Since then, interest in the moon has re-emerged, both by government and civilian space agencies, partly as part of the scientific-military competition between the US and its 53 partners in the Artemis project, and China and Russia, which are not partners in the project.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on January 27, 2025.
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