DEEP TECH + EXPLORATION

Google Lunar XPRIZE


SpaceIL
SpaceIL
Tel Aviv, Israel

SpaceIL is a nonprofit promoting science and scientific education to the next generation of scientists, engineers, and dreamers through innovative space missions. Started as part of the Google Lunar XPRIZE, SpaceIL was the first private organization that attempted an interplanetary robotic mission to reach the moon in April 2019. The organization has hundreds of volunteers and, in several years of operation, has managed to reach more than two million children. SpaceIL approaches lunar exploration through the development of small, cost-effective spacecrafts. Its initial spacecraft Beresheet 1 was co-developed by SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries, and its scientific payload included instruments to measure the local magnetic field and the distance between the Earth and the moon. The mass of the Beresheet at launch (including the fuel that made up most of the mass) was 585 kilograms. Beresheet 1 successfully reached lunar orbit before crash landing on the moon. SpaceIL is now working on Beresheet 2 with international collaboration for a second attempted lunar landing.