A follow-on Beresheet 2 mission with an orbiter and 2 mini-landers was under development for a few years until a worsening political situation caused the main funders to pull out, and SpaceIL ceased work on the mission in 2025. This was the closest to an actual moon mission which could reasonably be associated with the GLXP, even though the competition was over at this point.
Next: back to the Catalogue of Teams.
#moon #GLXP

This 'library' was intended to survive for zillions of years as an archive of human knowledge and culture. It also carried samples of human DNA and a cargo of dormant, dehydrated tardigrades, small aquatic creatures known to have survived exposure to the space environment in Earth orbit. They were inserted in the Archive, unannounced and unregulated, posing a challenge to the national oversight of space activities required by the Outer Space Treaty.
#moon #GLXP

One payload was a digital time capsule with cultural, historic and educational items reflecting Israeli culture and history. Another digital archive called The Lunar Library Genesis Mission was provided by the Arch Mission Foundation. It contained image and digital data including the English version of the digital encyclopedia Wikipedia, 25000 digitized books from Project Gutenberg and other archives, linguistic data for 5000 languages and a key to its use.
#moon #GLXP

Beresheet launched on 22 February 2019 and arrived at the Moon on 4 April, taking a slow low-energy trajectory. It attempted a landing on 11 April but crashed. This set of maps zooms us in to the impact site. Magnetometer data collected during the orbit phase and descent were affected by interference from the spacecraft itself and could not be used. X Prize awarded them a $1 million prize for the attempt.
#moon #GLXP

SpaceIL's new site is mapped here. The large circle is based on an image on the mission website in 2018. Aharonson et al. (2019) identified three 30 km circles provisionally named Posidonius 1, 2 and 3 after the large crater east of the landing area (https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2019/pdf/2290.pdf). The relationship between the magnetic field and the nearby wrinkle ridges would be studied as the lander descended. The lander name Beresheet (= Genesis) was chosen in a public poll.
#moon #GLXP

Other magnetic anomaly sites were available but these three (shown on this map) may have been preferred by this Israeli team for the Jewish heritage of the crater namesakes. In 2018 a new site was chosen in Mare Serenitatis. Team science advisor Oded Aharonson selected a site with a strong magnetic field. Further study of the problem ruled out the highland sites suggested earlier and mandated a mare site if its albedo was acceptable. A white box on the map shows the region.
#moon #GLXP

Safe sites were compared with maps of magnetic anomalies to find suitable locations, which were certified with high resolution images. Three targets were identified near Berzelius, Nonius and Wöhler. A specific Berzelius site was shown 50 km NW of the crater at 37.8° N, 53.3° E, just south of Berzelius W. Sites at Nonius and Wöhler are shown at the centres of large circles from Grossman et al. and may not be the precise intended locations.
#moon #GLXP

A new site selection plan for SpaceIL appeared in 2017 (https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2017/pdf/1914.pdf). Global maps of topography, rocks, albedo and roughness were used to find safe landing sites 15 km across (the landing ellipse would be 15 km long and its orientation was not yet known). The laser altimeter worked best in areas of intermediate albedo, excluding darker mare sites and fresh crater ejecta as at Tycho. Low latitudes including Reiner Gamma and regions within 20° of the limb were excluded.
#moon #GLXP

In November 2014 the team described a science goal for the mission. It would use a magnetometer to measure the lunar magnetic field during descent and on the surface before and after it hopped to a second location. This suggested that the site would be at or near one of the well-mapped magnetic anomalies, but a specific site was not described until 2015 - it was Reiner Gamma where a bright albedo 'swirl' coincides with a large magnetic anomaly. This would soon change.
#moon #GLXP

SpaceIL's initial plan was for a small lander to go to a site selected by high school students as a national science project in 2012. Late in 2012 SpaceIL took over Odyssey Moon. The lander was first called Sparrow, but other suggested names were Hatikvah (‘hope’) and Ramon (for Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, who died in the Columbia shuttle accident on 1 February 2003). The team was supported by wealthy investors, solving one big problem for all teams.
#moon #GLXP