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PHOTOS: Go exploring
Opher Doron, general manager of Israel Aerospace Industries' space division, speaks beside the SpaceIL lunar module during a press tour of their facility near Tel Aviv, Israel, in July. NASA officials said Wednesday that they will work with Israel on a probe slated to reach the moon in February.>>Don't wait for the probe to get there to see what the lunar landscape has to offer. Here's what moons planets you can explore through Google...
lessPhoto: Ilan Ben Zion, Associated PressPHOTOS: Go exploring
Opher Doron, general manager of Israel Aerospace Industries' space division, speaks beside the SpaceIL lunar module during a press tour of their facility near Tel Aviv, Israel, in ... more
PHOTOS: Go exploring
Opher Doron, general manager of Israel Aerospace Industries' space division, speaks beside the SpaceIL lunar module during a press tour of their facility near Tel Aviv, Israel, in July. NASA officials said Wednesday that they will work with Israel on a probe slated to reach the moon in February.>>Don't wait for the probe to get there to see what the lunar landscape has to offer. Here's what moons planets you can explore through Google...
lessPHOTOS: Go exploring
Opher Doron, general manager of Israel Aerospace Industries' space division, speaks beside the SpaceIL lunar module during a press tour of their facility near Tel Aviv, Israel, in ... moreNASA officials said Wednesday that they will work with Israel on a probe slated to reach the moon in February, making it the fourth country in the world to reach the lunar surface.
The American space agency and the Israel Space Agency have signed an agreement to "cooperatively utilize" the probe, being built by Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL to study the moon's magnetic fields. The agreement essentially means both countries will benefit from this mission.
For example, a NASA instrument will hitch a ride on the probe and Israel will share data about the magnetic field of the landing site with the U.S., which will be available publicly via NASA's Planetary Data System.
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Additionally, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter — a probe launched in 2009 that is mapping the moon's surface — will try to take measures of the probe as it lands.
"I'm thrilled to extend progress in commercial cooperation we've made in low-Earth orbit to the lunar environment with this new agreement with the Israel Space Agency and SpaceIL," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine in a Wednesday statement. "Innovative partnerships like this are going to be essential as we go forward to the Moon and create new opportunities there."
During a visit to Israel earlier this year, Bridenstine said he wanted to increase the space agency's collaboration with the country. He appears to be doing just that.
SpaceIL is an Israeli nonprofit that competed in the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition before it ended earlier this year with no winner. Work on the project, which is slated to launch in December from Cape Canaveral, Fla., first began in 2011.
The United States is the only country that has left human footprints on the moon, which we did for the first time in July 1969. The other two countries to land spacecraft on the moon are the Soviet Union in September 1959 and China in December 2013.
"The launch of the first Israeli spacecraft will fill Israel, in its 70th year, with pride. It is a national accomplishment that will put us on the world's space map," SpaceIL President Morris Kahn previously said.
The announcement comes as NASA shifts its focus to returning to the moon for the first time since 1972 as a stepping stone for a mission to Mars.
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Since taking office, President Donald Trump has made it clear that returning to the moon for the first time since 1972 is a priority for his administration.
His $19.9 billion NASA budget proposal for the coming fiscal year tasks NASA with launching the first flight without a crew for Orion — the spacecraft meant to take humans to Mars — by 2022, followed by a launch of Americans around the moon in 2023.
Additionally, Trump's proposal would allow the agency to begin working on the foundation of a Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, saying it would "give us a strategic presence in the lunar vicinity that will drive our activity with commercial and international partners and help us further explore the moon and its resources and translate that experience toward human missions to Mars."
Trump's proposed budget still must be approved by Congress.
Alex Stuckey covers NASA and the environment for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at alex.stuckey@chron.com or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey.
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