The journey of the Israeli space-craft “Beresheet” came to an unfortunate end last night, after the remote-controlled vehicle suffered from periodic engine and communications failure that led to the uncontrolled crash into the moon’s surface. The landing maneuver sequence was conducted after 10 last night, in the presence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, foreign dignitaries and sponsors, as well as a group of overly excited children. The attempted landing sequence started according to plan, with the space-craft transmitting a selfie image with the moon in its background. Nevertheless, shortly thereafter, “Beresheet” lost communications with its master-control room in Israel. According to officials from the Master Control Room “We are concerned that we didn’t land properly, we are currently evaluating the situation” / “According to all of the signs, to my disappointment, for the time being we will not become the fourth country (to land on the moon). Despite that, we made a tremendous achievement, we were very close to the moon. Probably we have reached the moon’s surface but not in the way we wanted. We will investigate what happened.”
Following the disappointing failure, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared the mere attempt to land on the moon as “a tremendous achievement,” and vowed not to abandon Jerusalem’s space aspirations. In the Prime Ministers words: “If at first you don’t succeed, then you try again. We will try again. We have reached the moon, but we want to land with more ease… and this is for the next attempt. But the very attempt is a tremendous achievement and I think you see all of these applauses, because we are really the fourth country to have accomplished this. We will be the fourth country – if we persevere – that also lands on the moon “