When Howard Stern blasted Roger Waters for his evangelical BDS tactics, including the former Pink Floyd’s condemnation of the band Bon Jovi for having a concert in Tel Aviv (not even part of the “occupied” territories), Stern said, referring to a title of a Pink Floyd album, “Where does Roger Waters want the Jews to go? To the dark side of the moon?”
A team of Israelis may be doing just that, although on just a short trip, and to the lit side of the moon, not the dark parts. In fact, they will not only represent the first Israeli lunar mission, but may be the first team in the world to launch a private moon landing. SpaceIL, a startup developed by three Israeli engineers in 2010 is about to successfully meet the challenge of Google’s Lunar X Prize competition, and will use the prize money to encourage young people to become more involved with science. Google’s competition will give $20 million to the first non-government affiliated team to accomplish a soft landing of an unmanned spacecraft on the moon, travel 500 meters on, above or below the surface of the moon, and send high definition images back to Earth.
SpaceIL is headed by Eran Privman and his co-founders, Yariv Bash, Kfir Damari and Yonatan Winetraub. They are using nano and micro technologies to develop a relatively small, inexpensive spacecraft the size of a dishwasher. It employs the “hop” rather than the “rover” concept for traveling, to save mass. The spacecraft will land on the moon and take off again with the remaining fuel for a second landing to cover the required 500 meters.
Kfir Damari was a graduate of Israel’s elite 8200 intelligence army unit. His interest in science began early, when he was programming computers by the age of six, while his friends were toying around with transformers. He became a lecturer in computer science before collaborating on the SpaceIL project. Damari told the Forward that, following a presentation of the spacecraft, a child asked for his autograph. “The fact that I can stand on stage and say ‘I’m Kfir and I’m an engineer’ and get asked for my autograph is exactly the kind of excitement I’m looking to create.”
Eran Privman served in the Israeli Air Force and holds a Ph.D in computer science with a specialty in Neuroscience at Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute. Prior to heading SpaceIL, Privman held several executive positions at Amdocs, a market leader in customer experience software solutions. Yonatan Winetraub gained space experience at NASA’s International Space University and worked with satellite systems. Yariv Bash, another SpaceIL founder, is an electronics and computer engineer and has developed advanced GPS based products. One of the people working on the project is just 15 years old, Amit Levin, working on determining the best place to land the craft. He was recruited after a scientist from SpaceIL showed students photographs of the moon’s surface. “He was like a messiah to me,” Amit said, and added, “In school, you work for an exercise book, and a teacher has the answers, or the answers are in the back of a book, and you aren’t supposed to look. This is the first time I’ve had a challenge and no one has the answer. It is so exciting.”
SpaceIL’s objective isn’t just to make it to the moon or to win the contest, but also to create an “Apollo effect” in Israel and around the world, to stimulate interest in science, technology and mathematics. If awarded the prize money, SpaceIL plans to use it to expand space educational opportunities and to invest in the space industry which they hope will take off in Israel.
According to the Google Lunar XPrize website, “The mission of the Google Lunar XPrize is to incentivize space entrepreneurs to create a new era of affordable access to the moon and beyond.” Those competing have until 2016 to announce a launch contract to remain in the competition and must complete their mission by the end of 2017. The Google Lunar XPrize’s goal is to stimulate the kind of innovation that will make space travel an integral part of the lives of ordinary people. Chanda Gonzales, senior director of the Google Lunar X Prize, told CBC, “We wanted the everyday man and woman to know that they could be innovators. They could literally build a spacecraft at their university or in their garages. You don’t have to be NASA.” The contest requires each team to secure at least 90% of its funding from private sources.
SpaceIL seems ready to fly before the contest’s deadline and has inked a crucial deal with Spaceflight Industries, which aims to make a trip to the moon become like flying overseas. While that goal is a long way off, in the nearer term, it has a rocket, the Space X Falcon 9 or the 2017 Sun Synch Express, which is expected to carry 20 satellites into orbit, including SpaceIL’s lunar probe. The probe, which goes by the working name “Sparrow,” is scheduled for a 2017 mission, with a $10 million price tag. The Falcon 9 was designed by business magnate, engineer, inventor and investor Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
The challenge faced by SpaceIL is that it must create a kind of hitchiker’s guide to the moon. The unmanned craft will be essentially hitchhiking on the Space X Falcon 9. This means it will be hard to anticipate where the craft’s starting point will be, since it depends entirely on where it will be dropped by the rocket. GPS systems can’t reach outside the Earth’s orbit, and a completely new navigation system is being created to allow the spacecraft to position itself properly. Damari said, “The only part that is really complicated and really new is the landing.”
SpaceIL looks likely to edge out the competition and complete the first private moon landing. Previously, only the US, the former Soviet Union and China have successfully launched spacecraft to the moon. SpaceIL’s closest rival in the current moon race is US company Moon Express, but its partner, Rocket Labs, has not yet tested its electron rocket and does not have a set launch schedule. There are a total of sixteen teams competing for the prize, including several from the United States, and teams from Brazil, India, Japan, Germany, Hungary, Malaysia, Italy, Canada, and Chile, as well as multi-national efforts. The other teams have until December 2016 to announce contracts, and SpaceIL’s deal with the rideshare company might spur others into action.
At a press conference, Israel’s president Reuven Rivlin, Bob Weiss, vice chairman and president of the XPrize, and SpaceIL CEO Eran Privman announced a “ticket to the moon” with the pairing up of SpacIL’s lunar probe and the Space X Falcon 9 Launcher. Bob Weiss said, “We are proud to officially confirm receipt and verification of SpaceIL’s launch contract, positioning them as the first and only Google Lunar XPrize team to demonstrate this important achievement thus far. The magnitude of this achievement cannot be overstated, representing an unprecedented and monumental commitment for a privately funded organization … the new space race is on!”
Eran Privman said, “Now the notion of the small state of Israel being added to this exclusive list looks more promising than ever. Last year, we made significant strides toward landing on the moon, both in terms of financing and in terms of the engineering design, and now we are thrilled to finally secure our launch agreement.”
Casino mogul and philanthropist Sheldon Adelson’s foundation shelled out $16.4 million for the SpaceIL project. This took care of a large chunk of the startup’s total $36 million budget. “As an entrepreneur,” Adelson told Reuters, “nothing is as thrilling as supporting a group of people who have been told their dreams cannot be realized.” SpaceIL also received a generous donation from Morris Kahn, an original investor in Amdocs, and philanthropist Lynn Shusterman.
When asked about SpaceIL’s chances of success, Aby Har-Even, former head of Israel’s space agency said, “I think they have the know-how and the technology and have a very good chance of being successful and winning the competition.” Former Israeli president Shimon Peres told the Forward, “The time has come for an Israeli flag to be planted on the moon. I am proud of the youngsters who created this initiative, to put the first Israeli spacecraft on the moon, and I know they can achieve it.”
