An update from Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) on Beresheet’s voyage to the moon.
Today at 1:29 p.m. Israel time (6:29 a.m. EST), Beresheet’s first maneuver was completed successfully by SpaceIL and IAI’s engineering team. The planned maneuver took into account the problems that were identified in the star trackers after launch.
This was the first time Beresheet’s main engine was activated. The 30-second maneuver was made at a distance of 69,400 km from Earth and will increase the spacecrafts’s closest point of approach to Earth to a distance of 600 km.