Beresheet - Lunar Lander

thingiverse

Beresheet is a lunar lander that is due to land on the moon on the 11th of April 2019. Have printed a scaled down version at 40%, and discovered a few issues. in the current version they all have been fixed. Did not have the chance to print it again but in a few hours from publishing will print a second try at 60% and post the results. Background taken from SpaceIL wikipedia page. Beresheet is a demonstrator of a small robotic lunar lander. Its aims include promoting careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); and landing its magnetometer and laser retroreflector on the Moon. The lander was previously known as Sparrow, and was officially named Beresheet (Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית, "Genesis") in December 2018.[32] Its net mass is 150 kg (330 lb); when fueled at launch its mass is 585 kg (1,290 lb). Size-wise, it has been compared to a washing machine. It uses seven ground stations, globally, for Earth-lander communication.[33] Its Mission Control room is at Israel Aerospace Industries in Yehud, Israel. Payload The spacecraft carries a digital "time capsule" containing over 30 million pages of data, including a full copy of the English-language Wikipedia, the Torah, children's drawings, a children's book inspired by the space launch, memoirs of a Holocaust survivor, Israel's national anthem (Hatikvah), the Israeli flag, and a copy of the Israeli Declaration of Independence.[8][34][35][36] Its scientific payload includes a magnetometer supplied by the Israeli Weizmann Institute of Science to measure the local magnetic field, and a laser retroreflector array supplied by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to enable precise measurements of the Earth–Moon distance.[37][38] Propulsion The spacecraft features one LEROS 2b liquid-propellant, restartable rocket engine, using monomethylhydrazine (MMH) fuel and mixed oxides of nitrogen (MON) as oxidizer. This single engine is used to reach lunar orbit, as well as for deceleration and propulsive landing.[10][39] Launch In October 2015, SpaceIL signed a contract for a launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida on a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster, via Spaceflight Industries.[15][40] It was launched on 22 February 2019 at 0145 UTC (20:45 local time on 21 February) as a secondary payload,[4][6][23] along with the telecom satellite PSN-6.[41] Beresheet is being controlled by a command center in Yehud, Israel.[42] From 24 February to 19 March, the main engine was used four times for orbit raising, putting its apogee close to the Moon's orbital distance.[43] The spacecraft performed maneuvers so as to be succussfully captured into an elliptical lunar orbit on 4 April 2019, and has adjusted its flight pattern in a circular orbit around the Moon. Once in the correct circular orbit, it will decelerate for a soft landing on the lunar surface, planned for 11 April 2019.[44] Planned landing site The planned landing site is in the north part of the Mare Serenitatis,[31] and the landing zone is about 15 km (9.3 mi) in diameter.[45] Beresheet will operate for an estimated two days on the lunar surface,[15] as it has no thermal control and is expected to quickly overheat.[46] However, its laser retroreflector is a passive device requiring no electrical power and is expected to be functional for several decades. (See: List of retroreflectors on the Moon)