The first private lunar rover Beresheet successfully launched the engines and corrected the orbit

SpaceIL began developing Beresheet in 2012 after winning the Lunar XPrize competition.It is assumed that the lunar rover

will be able to travel on the surface of the Moon for at least 500 m, and will also sendon Earth photographs and soil analysis.

On February 22, the Falcon 9 rocket brought Beresheet toorbit where the device will spend 2.5 months, gradually rising. Then the rover will start the engines and fly to the moon - it is planned that he will land on the Earth satellite at the end of April 2019.

We conducted our first successful maneuver at a distance of 69.4 thousand kilometers.km from the ground by turning on the engines for 30 seconds.The next correction will be made on February 25.

SpaceIL

Earlier, Chinese engineers began to develop a new generation of launch vehicles that will be used to deliver cargo weighing up to 70 tons and manned flights to the moon into orbit.