JERUSALEM - The team behind the Israeli spacecraft that crashed into the moon moments before touchdown was working Friday to try and piece together what derailed the ambitious mission, which sought to make history as the first privately funded lunar landing. Radio signals from the spacecraft flat-lined as the scheduled touchdown time came and went, leading engineers to assume that the small spacecraft was scattered in pieces after slamming into the landing site. People watch the live broadcast of the SpaceIL spacecraft as it lost contact with Earth in Netanya, Israel, Thursday, April 11, 2019. The failure was a disappointing end to a lunar voyage of 6.5 million kilometres (4 million miles), almost unprecedented in length and designed to conserve fuel and reduce price. “Israel made it to the moon, and Beresheet’s journey hasn’t ended,” said Israeli billionaire Morris Kahn, one of the project’s major sponsors.

Source: thestar April 12, 2019 15:59 UTC