A full-scale model of Beresheet in Habima Square, Tel Aviv. File photo by TaBaZzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
2019Technology
Beresheet reaches lunar orbit in April 2019 and is lost during its landing attempt.
NASA calls it Israel's first lunar mission and the first attempt by a private company to land on the Moon.
The story in numbers.
$100million
to build and launch the spacecraft, the Times of Israel reports
SourceThe Times of Israel
585 kg
the spacecraft's mass
SourceNASA
2.3 m
wide, with its landing legs out
SourceNASA
22 km
height of an image it sent during the landing attempt
SourceThe Planetary Society
Here is how it happened.
2010
SpaceIL is established in 2010 to take on the Lunar X Prize.
The competition, sponsored by Google, challenges private companies to land a spacecraft on the Moon.
SourceNASA
March 2018
The prize ends with no winner, and the Israeli team presses on.
No company meets the deadline, so Google ends the competition in March 2018. The Israeli team continues.
SourceNASA
22 February 2019
Beresheet launches on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Florida.
It lifts off at 1:45 UT from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It then enlarges its Earth orbit step by step until the Moon's gravity captures it.
SourceNASA
April 2019
Beresheet reaches lunar orbit.
The spacecraft is about 1 m tall and 2.3 m wide with its legs out. It carries a magnetometer and a NASA laser retroreflector.
SourceNASA
The Beresheet crash site seen from orbit, eleven days after the landing attempt. File photo by NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
11 April 2019
The team loses contact with Beresheet shortly before its landing on 11 April 2019.
The planned landing site is the Sea of Serenity. The spacecraft sends an image from 22 kilometres up during the attempt.
SourceNASA
May 2019
In May 2019 Morris Kahn says he will fund a second attempt.
He had provided a large chunk of the $100 million needed to build and launch the first spacecraft. The Times of Israel calls its cost a fraction of earlier, state-funded efforts.
SourceThe Times of Israel
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More pictures from this story.
The spacecraft model is unveiled at the President's residence in Jerusalem, October 2015. File photo by אלון הדר, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The spacecraft model is unveiled at the President's residence in Jerusalem, October 2015 
A model of the spacecraft at the International Astronautical Congress in Jerusalem, October 2015. File photo by אמא של גולן, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
A model of the spacecraft at the International Astronautical Congress in Jerusalem, October 2015
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Here is why it matters.
It was Israel's first lunar mission, run by a private company with the Israeli Space Agency. The team kept going after the prize it was built for ended without a winner.
Three more milestones to read next.
1988
Israel launches its first satellite, Ofek-1.
Read the story
An Iron Dome battery near Ashkelon. File photo by Israel Defense Forces, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
2011
Iron Dome intercepts its first rocket, a Grad fired toward Ashkelon.
Read the story
WEIZAC at the Weizmann Institute. File photo by Yuval Madar, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.
1954
WEIZAC, Israel's first computer, starts running.
Read the story
Where each fact was read.
Sources read on 1 November 2026.