The very first privately funded mission to the Moon is already underway, with the Beresheet spacecraft taking off this past Friday. The mission, which is the first lunar mission for Israel and the only one ever to be backed by private investors, was going along smoothly until a still-unexplained computer glitch threw the spacecraft’s engineers for a loop.
According to SpaceIL, the startup behind the mission, the spacecraft was scheduled to perform a maneuver that would further its path towards the Moon, but something went wrong. Just before it was supposed to make its move, the spacecraft’s computers unexpectedly restarted, cancelling out the commands and keeping the Beresheet lander on its already-established orbit.
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First privately funded mission to the Moon hit by bizarre computer glitch in space originally appeared on BGR.com on Wed, 27 Feb 2019 at 12:57:37 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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