An Israeli flag 37,000 km from home
Israel's Beresheet spacecraft sends it first selfie photograph as it continues its mission to land on the moon on April 11; snap shows the flag and a special message from the Jewish state
SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) on Tuesday released a selfie taken by the Israeli spacecraft "Beresheet" (Genesis), which is scheduled to land on the moon on April 11.
The picture, taken 37,600 km from Earth, shows the Israeli flag and the inscription with "Am Yisrael Hai" (the People of Israel Live) in Hebrew and the inscription "Small Country, Big Dreams" in English.
The spacecraft was snapped as it passed over Australia, and the photograph was taken during a very slow rotation by Beresheet. The Israeli spacecraft, built in an IAI factory, is in an elliptical orbit around Earth - its greatest distance from Earth at this stage is some 131,000 kilometers.
Beresheet was launched from Cape Canaveral on February 22 at 3:45 am. It is scheduled to land on the moon a week after it is supposed to be "trapped" in the moon's orbit.
Last Thursday, the spacecraft successfully performed a maneuver to send it into elliptical orbit around the Earth, where its furthest point from home is 131,000 km, after a previous attempt to do so failed when its computer system unexpectedly rebooted.
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and SpaceIL said after the completion of the maneuver that Beresheet's main engine was activated for about four minutes. The next maneuver is set to take place later in the week.
