An Israeli spacecraft rocketed, on Thursday night, towards the moon for Israel's first attempted lunar landing.
Elon Musk's SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was successfully launched with the main cargo being a communications satellite for Indonesia, in addition to a small spacecraft, known as Beresheet, towards the moon from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, United States.
Beresheet, which means Genesis or “in the beginning” in the Hebrew language, will take about two months to reach the moon. It is scheduled to reach the moon on April 4th and attempt a lunar landing on April 11th.
SpaceIL, the Israeli organization behind Israel’s first mission to the moon that's been working on the lander for eight years, is one of the original Google Lunar XPrize teams and is expected to be the first among nearly 30 teams to make it to the moon.
Israel seeks to become the fourth country to successfully land a spacecraft on the surface of the moon, after the Soviet Union, the US, and China.
Yonatan Winetraub, co-founder of SpaceIL, said "This is going to be the first private interplanetary mission that's going to go to the moon. This is a big milestone."
This article has been adapted from its original source.
