Thursday, 18 April 2019
It came so close. It even took a selfie. But with only a few kilometers left to descend, something went wrong and the spacecraft Beresheet veered out of control, taking one final photograph just before it hit the surface. It is thought that there was a fault, possibly in the inertial system, possibly an engine failure, that led to the crash. The spaceship was autonomous – its complex series of trajectory corrections to ensure a safe landing had been programmed in before launch, and could not be changed in real time. So by the time the data were received showing…
This story continues at The Next Web
