When the spacecraft was captured by the Moon’s gravity on April 4, Israel became the seventh nation to insert a probe into lunar orbit. On Thursday, it became the fifth nation to send a robot to the Moon’s surface, though it was not the soft touchdown the mission leaders had hoped for.
At this time, it’s not clear what caused the engine and telemetry malfunctions that led up to the failure. But even though it is not the ideal outcome, Beresheet is in good company. Many lunar probes have crash-landed on the Moon, both deliberately and accidentally.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
