CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, Fla. — In the first launch of 2019 from Florida's Space Coast, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 with a historic lunar payload.
- SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches from Space Coast
- Israeli-made lunar lander to study moon's magnetic field
- Rocket also carrying satellites for Southeast Asia, US Air Force
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The Falcon 9 is carrying three payloads, including an Israeli-made lunar lander. The nonprofit SpaceIL created the lander.
After the Falcon 9 rocket launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the lunar lander should separate and make a two-month journey to the moon.
If it successfully lands, it will be the first privately funded mission to make it to the lunar surface.
"This is a $100 million mission, when compared to the billions and billions of dollars it costs to get to the moon today, it's extremely cheap. And hopefully, newer designs and further development will bring that cost even lower so that we can do a lot more science on the moon once those costs are down," SpaceIL cofounder Yonatan Winetraub said.
The spacecraft will take photos and study the moon's magnetic field. The mission is only expected to last a couple of days.
Israel will also join the U.S., Russia and China as the only nations to land on the moon.
SpaceIL hopes to inspire children in Israel and around the world.
"We want to shift the spark toward sciences and engineering because we need them to move the economy forward," Winetraub said. "We want to give the impression to kids that if you study sciences or engineering today, you can be a rocket scientist, or solve cancer or global warming or whatever it is important to you, but you need to start with sciences today."
The primary payload for the Falcon 9 rocket is the Nusantara Satu communications satellite for an Indonesian company. It will provide voice, data and video distribution service in Southeast Asia.
Also hitching a ride is the U.S. Air Force Research Lab's S5 mission, which will detect small satellites in orbit.
SpaceX landed the first-stage booster on a drone ship off the Atlantic coast.
In a first on the East Coast, the company was expected to try to recover the payload fairing, or nose cone, using parachutes and a boat with a large net.