Iran Edging Towards War with the World

 

The ramping is about to begin for earnest. In recent reports we find that, “Iranian President Hassan Rouhani issued an ultimatum Wednesday to the remaining signatories of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran nuclear deal, vowing to end all limitations on uranium enrichment if its demands are not met.” In related reports we find that the, “Islamic Republic had quadrupled its enrichment rate of low-enrichment uranium,” as well as that according to an unnamed source said who was quoted by Fars, “As the commission meeting in Vienna could not satisfy Iran’s just demands … Iran is determined to cut it commitments to the deal and the 300 kg enriched uranium limit will be soon breached.” We have our own opinions about the Iranian nuclear program, you know, the program which under the JCPOA they would monitor themselves, report to the United Nations and then the two could work together with assistance from the European Union to allow Iran to do as they please, manufacture nuclear weapons both in warheads and payloads for their several forms of delivery all while not breaking a stretched and warped JCPOA which will end up being even more porous than the original, the one President Trump withdrew from as it had insufficient restrictions and allowed Iran complete ability to become a nuclear armed nation within the decade. So, what to expect without getting lost in the minutia as that is what will be discussed, covered by the media and used as a distraction while Iran continues to arm herself.

 

Iran already had rudimentary nuclear devices which would serve as guidelines from where they could develop more powerful weapons and miniaturize them such that they would be deliverable atop their numerous ballistic missiles and especially atop their ICBM which has been in development for at least a decade. There are numerous different ballistic missiles which Iran manufactures (Pictured below). The ranges given are assuming a near maximum payload and can be increased by reducing the payload. That is why the miniaturization becomes so important, you get greater deliverable yields per pound or kilo and thus instead of their Simorgh missile being restricted to a range of 4000 to 6000 km, by decreasing the payload by 33% and the range increases to approximately 5500 to 8000 km which begins to bring some coastal areas of the United States within range from Tehran. Even fully loaded, that missile can readily strike every European capital city with ease. Add in the other means that Iran has proven to be capable of deploying, such as firing ballistic missiles from cargo-container ships which brings all but remote parts of Siberia within range as even the Shahab-3 has been fired from a cargo ship stationed in the Caspian Sea test firing over the western mountains of Iran striking a firing range in the southern end of the range in the high desert. These tests were fortunately caught and the trajectory tracked by surveillance satellites. Needless to comment, but a nuclear armed Iran places every capital city and most major metropolitan areas in the Western world and beyond within range of either their ground-based missiles or their cargo-container ship fired missiles making almost nobody safe from an Iranian threat carried out. This knowledge should be part of any calculations made concerning Iran.

 

Iranian Rocket Types and Varieties of Ranges 

 

 

Iranian Missile Trajectory of test firing from freighter cargo ship sailing out in the Caspian Sea aimed to strike in the southern end of the high desert covering a range of close to two-thousand-five-hundred kilometers. This test has been practiced with every solid rocket missiles from Iranian armories. 

 

 

This leads to the most vital question; would Iran initiate the use of nuclear weapons. One comment may provide an inside look at the Iranian outlook if war should break out. A senior Iranian parliamentarian threatened on Monday that Israel will be destroyed in half an hour if the United States attacks Iran, the semi-official Iranian Mehr news agency reported, according to this source. So, Iran is willing to provoke a war with the United States and should the United States respond, they would attack Israel, a nation which is not a party to the conflict to that point. And there is more hidden in this threat to provoke widening any conflict by attacking the Jewish State. Iran would certainly attempt to utilize any response from Israel as a reason for the Islamic world to come to their aid in this jihad now about to be waged on Israel as well as the United States. But even this is not the end of what is intimated in this threat, and that will answer our question about Iran using nuclear weapons when initiating a conflict. The same source also reports that Mojtaba Zonnour, Chairman of Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, made the remarks in an interview with the Al-Alam TV network stating, “If the US attacks us, only half an hour will remain of Israel’s lifespan.” We also should remember that other Iranian officials have referred to Israel as a one or two bomb country inferring that with as few as two bombs, Israel could be, for all intents and purposes, destroyed as a nation leaving little of her population and infrastructure. Now, we know Israel is a rather small nation, about the size and shape of New Jersey, but it would take numerous salvos of conventional explosives in order to destroy Israel. On the other hand, with a nuclear weapon were to be dropped at the southern end of the Tel Aviv metropolitan region and another between Tel Aviv and Haifa, then a goodly part of Israel would face ruination. The next question would be whether or not Iran would bomb Jerusalem, the second largest and populous city, as this too would be necessary if Israel were to actually be destroyed. Still, to destroy Israel in such a manner, the only means would be to use nuclear weapons. These leads us to believe that Iranian leadership has little compunction about using nuclear weapons, and this should trouble everybody.

 

Thus far open warfare has been avoided, not that it has not come very close. There were the oil tankers which were attacked with mines and other means in the area around the Straits of Hormuz which did not bring any response from the United States. They could rightfully claim that they did not have conclusive evidence that the Iranians were involved. Then came the downing of the United States reconnaissance drone which was purportedly in international air space which was tied directly to Iran. President Trump initiated a response only to call off the strike and order the aircraft back to their stations on the aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea. There have been numerous discussions as to whether this made President Trump appear prudent or was a sign of weakness. Whichever appeals to you, it makes little difference until somebody acts upon such suppositions. Should Iran interpret their not being hit and the strike being called back and believe the United States is fearful of any war with Iran, then there is going to be a problem. From what we have read and feel, Iran will continue pushing until there does come a response from the United States and then they will run to the European Union and the United Nations screaming ‘Foul!’ At this point, the world will begin to take sides in this coming disaster. The initial breakdown will be evidenced by the General Assembly vote as to whether they back the Iranian complaint or side with the United States and their claims of Iranian provocations. Then things will develop as the United States, or at least President Trump, will insist on backing from the rest of NATO. We can pretty much guarantee that Turkey will claim that they are too involved in containing the Syrian violence to spare any forces. Of course, that is simply their excuse, the reality is that Turkey is no longer a supportive member of NATO and has decided to go along with the Islamic world and their eternal struggle against the nonbelievers.

 

The most frightening thing has also been commentary from Iranian leaders over the years who have stated things such as, “If the US attacks us, only half an hour will remain of Israel’s lifespan,” plus referring to the recall by President Trump of the strike force, “If they (the Americans) had predicted their attack would be successful, they would not have cancelled it and it would definitely have happened,” and lastly, the Supreme Leader has stated in the past that he would sacrifice Iran if it was required in order to destroy Israel. Once again, we have the immediate result of an Iranian first strike on Israel would destroy the nation. This kind of statement is being made with the knowledge that well over half of any initial set of missiles would be intercepted by the series of anti-missile platforms developed by Israel which include David’s Sling and the gamut of Arrow interceptors which are tied into the THAAD interceptor and over-the-horizon detection systems which President Trump ordered set up in Israel to assist with her defense against such attacks. But when Iran threatens to destroy Israel with two bombs, what they intend is they will launch some countable number of missiles, potentially nuclear tipped, and hope to get at least two through the Israeli defenses while Hezballah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad will attempt to launch as many of their over one-hundred-fifty-thousand missiles and rockets in their combined inventory and be counting on such a barrage to destroy Israel. This, too, has been made questionable due to the Israeli Iron Dome interceptors but even they would be pushed beyond breaking point with such a number of targets to down. Perhaps, once such an exchange had taken place between Hezballah in southern Lebanon and southwestern Syria aided by the Iranian IRGC forces in southern Syria probably all coordinated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad largely in Gaza with some potential for problems out of the Shomron areas of the Palestinian Authority, then Iran might launch a second series of missiles hoping that the majority of the Israeli interceptors were destroyed.

 

The real problem is that we are talking about how Iran would go about destroying Israel, but why would they take on an adversary which might well be willing to utterly destroy at least Tehran and Qom. Why Qom, I hear some ask. Qom is the holy city from whence the Twelfth Imam is said to arise from through some miraculous events as he has been in hiding, presumably in this well in Qom, and he will signal the beginning of Shiite Islam rising and not only becoming the strong horse and the main sect of Islam (it currently represents about 10% of Islam with the Sunni being almost all the remainder) and soon after to ruling the world. The one thing which would be assumed should an attack of missiles be launched against Israel by Iran, namely that it would be a WMD attack of either nuclear topped missiles or warheads carrying chemical agents. Any Israeli response to a WMD attack is well known, Israel will return in kind meaning Israel will use WMDs which means nuclear missiles. The reality is that any actual Iranian missile launch from their areas in Iran, Syria or Iraq would likely be initiated with the launching of likely hundreds of missiles towards Israel. Israel cannot be expected to wait and see how many were intercepted and what were the nature of the ones which detonated within Israel before responding. Israel has about eight to ten minutes to decide whether or not to respond and exactly how Israel will respond if they decide to do so. That does not leave any time for consultations and is the kind of decision which would be laid primarily in the lap of the Prime Minister. With such a time limit before the missiles strike, one need figure that of those eight to ten minutes after detection, five would be required to order, program and launch any response. That leaves time for what would be the toughest four-minute decision in Bibi Netanyahu or any Israeli Prime Minister’s time in office. Fortunately, that decision would never be placed in our hands for the foreseeable future. Israel almost naturally must assume that any Iranian missile launch would be largely made up of WMDs, probably both nuclear and chemical agent warheads would be employed.

 

Further, Israel is not likely to be their only target launched upon as we can expect many of the Gulf States, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and potentially even Egypt. Iran has plans for their taking of the Saudi Arabian oil fields along with the Gulf States and Kuwait as well as taking control of Mecca and Medina. They believe that by doing so they will have destroyed the Saudi Royal family and much of the Sunni world’s leadership leaving the Islamic world for the taking. Despite the news coverage stressing everything Israel launched and does militarily while playing down the responses from the Saudis and their allies; President Trump will be blamed for not attacking Iran, attacking Iran too forcefully, attacking Iran too anemically, for using weapons systems which were too expensive when less measures were available, using WMDs, not using WMDs or just about anything else one can imagine. We cannot leave out the howling, wringing of hands, crocodile tears and other news anchor antics should a single United States soldier be injured or, heavens forbid, killed. We are not sure where the concept came that wars can be fought without casualties, but that is a very dangerous concept. The best bet, as the WOPR computer system from the movie “War Games” stated after doing some deep thinking, “Strange Game. The only winning move is not to play.” Well, we pray that nobody decides to initiate this strange game where the only winning move is not starting something which others are assured of completing.

 

War Games WOPR Computer 

 

Beyond the Cusp

With Trust Broken Trust Renewed Again?

 

Thursday evening there was a nonevent taken place with Egypt again as the intermediary. Israel and Hamas signed an agreement for an end to the balloon and kite terrorist attacks as well as ending rockets, mortars and presumably all other forms of terror attacks utilized by Hamas. In return Israel extended the fishing distance into the Mediterranean Sea and other considerations. One might ask why Israel would enter once more into such an empty agreement knowing full well that as soon as Hamas or Islamic Jihad are ready or receive directions from Iran, the attacks will start anew. That is presuming that the attacks actually are terminated at all. The nice thing about this round of trust given-trust broken was that we did not have to wait all that long before the lack of reality of the treaty was revealed. Within twenty-four hours of signing the truce, there were approximately seven-thousand rioters launching balloons and setting numerous fires across the southern border with Gaza. Hamas will inevitably claim that these were ground swell demonstration which they are unable of preventing as they are an expression of the unease amongst their population. This is an unease promoted and paid for by Hamas and their sponsors in Iran. These attacks have grown beyond the ability and probably beyond the desire of Hamas to control. Hamas instigated these attacks as a means of employing the restless youth who seeking employ were unable to find anything in Gaza. This is due to the Gazan economy all but in total collapse.

 

It is well known that Hamas has made one of their main concerns to be fomenting attacks on Israel. This is what led to the last war over the launching of hundreds of rockets daily for over a week before Israel responded militarily. Since that confrontation, Israel has deployed the Iron Dome missile defense systems which have made rocket attacks almost harmless. The Iron Dome is capable of intercepting multiple rockets at a time. Their remarkable interception rate and ability to project where a projectile will land has permitted Israel to all but nullify rocket attacks from Gaza. Hamas initially responded with border riots and terrorist infiltration tunnels. Israel developed a system which was capable of detecting the tunnels and the ones beneath Israeli territory were destroyed. This led to the launching of incendiary kites. These fire-kites worked well but their range was limited, thus the next phase was launching these devices using balloons. These carried the explosive charge further into Israel and spawned additional fires away from the former fires still being extinguished.

 

Hamas has already claimed after the last treaty that they could no longer control these fire launchings as they had grown beyond their ability to control. Hamas had absolutely no difficulty in suppressing the large scale riots and protests against their misrule of Gaza but are unable to prevent a group of youths and young adults launching balloons. This will be their excuse behind the several thousands of rioters who flocked to the border launching incendiary laden balloons into Israel sparking a record number of fires for a single day’s protests on Friday after the truce was signed. Hamas has allowed these rioters to continue with their assaults on Israel leading to the end of the last truce which did not last twenty-four hours and this time is proving to be no different. Hamas signs truces with Israel not intending to alter their violence against the Jewish State but to use as an additional bludgeon to beat Israeli resistance to a halt. They have no intentions for slowing or stopping the arson attacks on Israel and will, with time, return to their tunneling beneath the border with infiltration tunnels intended for the murder and kidnapping of Israeli civilians and to launching rockets at Israeli communities including Haifa, Tel Aviv and other cities over time.

 

Negotiations with Hamas have proven ineffective in preventing or ceasing their violent activities targeting southern Israel. Time and again these conflicts have escalated until a larger and more encompassing Israeli interventions is launched. With Israel heading for elections again in September, Hamas believes this is the time to take advantage of Israeli avoidance of large-scale operations in Gaza or elsewhere. Their feeling is that Israel will remain vulnerable at least until the elections as Bibi Netanyahu is not anxious to have to explain to the public his actions when the majority of Israelis are not affected by the Hamas escalation of attacks. This will, unfortunately, merely act to encourage Hamas to escalate the situation climaxing the week before the elections. Their hope is that the Israelis will react by electing a government more conducive to granting them even further concessions. Concessions are a reward and will never act as an inhibiting factor for a deterrence curbing the violence and rioting. The unfortunate reality is that Hamas, like all of Palestinian Arab society and too many of the Middle East region, only understand strong military actions designed not to retaliate but as a preventive measure which had removed their ability to strike at Israel. Their current form of attack with balloons and kites would be impossible to inhibit unless Hamas has an interest in preventing their taking place. That has proven something elusive to the Israeli leadership as if they have forgotten every lesson of past dealings with Hamas.

 

Hamas Demands Arming Terror with Money

 

Further, Hamas is demanding that Israel permit their monthly payments of millions of shekels be permitted by Israel. These are the funds which Hamas required in order to pay their people, this according to Hamas. What Israel need learn from Mahmoud Abbas and apply to Hamas is that the first and most important payments on their payrolls are those willing to harm Israel and potentially murder Israelis. None of the payments will be used to prevent violence against Israel but rather to pay for additional violence against Israel and the stockpiling of rockets for future wars on Israel. This has been their exact modus operandi and will continue as such for as long as Israeli leadership is willing to play the patsy to Hamas. There are two tactics which would prove far more effective but which apparently Bibi Netanyahu is unprepared to use. The easiest which would simply cause Qatari money to find a new route into Gaza. They would likely be required to bribe Egyptian authorities and even then, such would be an unlikely path as Egypt has caught Hamas assisting with attacks on Egyptian personnel in the Sinai Peninsula. The other tactic is straight forward, military might to be used to smash their tools of war. There exists another means of deterrence which would work which has yet to be applied, targeting the areas where the leadership of Hamas reside and the stores, restaurants and other entertainment facilities such that the leadership finally pays a price. The main reason for the temerity in this area is because they would not desire to open up such an area where Hamas terrorists might target them. The final means of ending the problems arising from Gaza, be it Hamas, Islamic Jihad or any other terror entity would be to drive all of Gaza from Israel depositing them in the Sinai Peninsula. Such an operation would require making preliminary arrangements with the Egyptian government so they could be prepared to arrest or otherwise detain the Hamas leadership and military commanders. What is so ridiculous is that were Israel to follow such a path, the world would condemn Israel and blame Israel for the incarceration of the Hamas top leaders, both military and political, as if there is any real difference. The difference is that were Israel to incarcerate the Hamas and Islamic Jihad leadership, the world would be screaming for their release. By having Egypt do so, the world would scream for Israel to arrange their release and Israel could simply claim that no such plan has proven acceptable to Egypt. The world would not bother attempting to force Egypt to release these terror leaders as they know it would have no effect. But the Israeli leadership refuses to escalate the conflict to such a level.

 

The honestly sad reality is that eventually the depopulation of Gaza will be the final result of the Hamas, Islamic Jihad et al terror war against Israel. Their education system, summer camps and their entire education system is geared to the production of future terrorists rather than educating for a normative society. Their emphasis is not on Mathematics, sciences, language and other areas which are required for a productive and normal society. This is not the aim of Hamas and their allies. They are interested in producing armies of terrorists ready for that day when they will be capable of bring down Israel. Their dream is to reach a similar state which Hezballah has assembled in southern Lebanon and is using to assist Bashir al-Assad in Syria where Hezballah has well over one-hundred-thousand rockets and missiles with many capable of striking anywhere in Israel. This is partly why Hamas has allied with Iran as it was Iran who armed Hezballah. This is partly why Hamas continually demands that their region allowed for their fishing fleets be expanded. They know that by increasing their area for fishing, they increase the area for smuggling in such weapons making Israeli deterrence and preventive measures far more difficult to apply. Their dream is to be gifted an international airport through which tons of such military provisions could be transferred without the opportunity for Israel to prevent such. The same applies to their insistence to have their ports open and is the essential demand of the flotillas which regularly attempt to run the blockade which permits Israeli inspection of provisions before passing them on into Gaza. Currently, these inspections usually take under twenty-four hours with most provisions passed through the same day as they arrive. Stopping the so-called humanitarian supplies is another means of harming Hamas as any provisions which the terrorists do not have to expend funds on is simply more money for terrorism. Israel has permitted on several occasions for building supplies to be permitted into Gaza which should have rebuilt all the damages from the wars. Almost nothing has been rebuilt as these building provisions have been used for building bunkers, tunneling networks, underground rocket firing positions and infiltration tunnels. It has been figured that Hamas could have build several schools and apartment buildings with the materials used in a single infiltration tunnel. Multiply that by the dozens of tunnels and all of Gaza could have been made immaculate instead of remaining in ruins. There are literally two Gaza’s, the one where Hamas leadership lives and the one where they place their rockets and mortar positions knowing that return fire will destroy the area surrounding the position (see images below). This is why we have often suggested that instead of return fire solely on the launch site, but also lobbing a small artillery round at a single target in the thus far pristine regions and start allowing the difficulties caused by this constant state of war to be shared by those responsible. The reality is that each rocket fired into Israel, every balloon launched into Israel, every kite carrying explosives into Israel and every tunnel dug under the border into Israel all originated with the leadership of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. We may find that some rounds of violence from Gaza may have been ordered even further away in Iran which opens up a plethora of future possibilities.

 

The Two Gazas with One Pristine and the Other Ravaged

 

The entire Arab Israeli conflict will have only one of two eventual results. The obvious one is no more Israel, something much of the world appears not only willing but anxious to bring about, and the other is a defeat brought forth by Israel such that no Arab for a thousand years would even give a glancing evil look in the direction of Israel out of fear for their life. Such results have historic precedence. In almost every case where the Arab forces have been prevented from extending their rule further has been as the result of a military defeat which was unequivocally severe and ubiquitous for preventing their reorganization and returning to attack again. Such defeats in history include but are not limited to the Battle of Tours, the Spanish Inquisition, the ending of the Second Siege of Vienna when Polish King John III Sobieski relieved Vienna bringing his entire army south for the effort after reaching agreements with his neighboring countries to not invade while his forces performed this holy duty, and of course World War I marked the end of the Ottoman Empire. Granted, Israel will not be required to go to such extents but the world will still howl as if Israel had committed a war crime unprecedented in human history.

 

Never mind that virtually every battle and war before the modern era would have constituted a litany of war crimes committed by both sides as making warfare a more benign action is a recent insanity. This has led to the concept of proportionality, which President Trump just used to justify his recall of the strike upon Iran. There has never been any war where proportionality was utilized by either side, let alone the victorious side. The overriding use of force in warfare has been an attempt at imposing disproportional damages, casualties and defeats upon the enemy. Some small examples of such acts of disproportionality include the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima at the end of World War II, the Rape of Nanking by Japan in World War II, the Bataan Death March during World War II, the Shoah extermination of over twelve-million undesirables by the Nazis in death camps, the use of poison gas during World War I, the entrance of the machine gun (Gatling gun) in the American Civil War, the Roman conquests, the Greek conquests, the Persian conquests and on throughout history warfare has been a contest of which side was capable of imposing the greater amount of disproportionality inflicted upon their enemies. Whenever proportionality is used, it is usually to impose severe constraints on one side preventing them from actually defeating the threat facing them. This is the main reason for its use all but exclusively against Israel. There were no intents at proportionality in the recent efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Balkans or any of the conflicts which have taken place since World War II which brought in the modern era with concepts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and proportionality as the means of preventing wars from reaching actual conclusive endings which has served to actually prolong conflicts as since neither side was able to inflict a complete defeat using disproportional force after their enemy was defeated but refusing to surrender, their having to stop due to world pressures only led to the conflict resuming at a later date leading to far more damage and higher casualties than had the initial efforts been permitted to reach a permanent solution. The other thing which we have noted is that proportionality has only been demanded from nations considered to be Western nations. This has been applied to India in their running conflict over Casmir against Pakistan. There were some who were worried that during the period that India had nuclear warheads and Pakistan did not, that India might actually use these weapons to impose finality on their conflict with Pakistan. Unamusingly, once Pakistan also had nuclear weapons this fear of their use bringing on a disproportional end to the conflict dissolved and was never equaled by the fear of a nuclear war breaking out and both sides decimating the other’s civilian populations in many of their major cities. But evidenced by the virtual universal use of disproportionality is the United States coming in second and Israel the easy winner as virtually every action taken by Israel is condemned for being disproportional. There have been people and groups who have bemoaned the fact that Israelis are being saved by the Iron Dome and Gazans have no such system; thus, they have demanded that Israel provide Hamas with the Iron Dome systems. This is the end result of the logic of proportionality and these are the ends of ridiculousness the world has reached in their hatreds towards the Jewish State. There will be an end to this conflict some day and the world can only pray that Israel proves the victor as any other result will spell doom for the world.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Winner in Israel Is…

 

The election will be over but probably not the screaming. The tally will be known and all that is left is for the coalition to be announced. It may already have been cobbled together, but all of that will not matter on April 11, 2019, which will forever be known as the day Beresheet and Israel landed on the Moon. There will be those who will still be arguing about the election, but some are always stuck on politics. I know that we are a fine one to talk about obsessing over politics. Today, with elections already driving many to the brink, we decided to be calm and talk about the little spacecraft that is about to be the first privately funded, government free (sort of) that ever landed on the Moon. Beresheet will make Israel the forth or fifth nation to soft-land a craft on the Moon behind the United States, USSR (Russia), China and here comes the iffy part as sources we checked were uncertain whether or not India had also managed this feat. Israel has also become the seventh country to enter the Moon’s orbit after a successful maneuver the last couple of days. Beresheet has six cameras nestled under the top plate on the spacecraft. Just like any teenager with a cellphone, Beresheet is able to take selfies like the one below. That small orb just hanging there in space, that’s us, the Earth, everything we know is on that small orb. And of course we are going to try and fill the article with pictures taken by our ‘little spacecraft that could’ from the small country with big dreams.

 

Beresheet Takes a Selfie with Earth Doing a Photobomb

 

The Beresheet lander weighs in at a mere 180 kg (600 kg fully fueled), she is a four-legged spacecraft and is the smallest, a mere one and a half meters by two meters wide and one and a half meters tall (approx. washing machine sized), and least expensive spacecraft to land on the Moon thusfar. It is so appropriate that Israel, one of the smaller nations (about the same size as New Jersey), would build a spacecraft commensurate with her own size, but Beresheet will hopefully perform some remarkable achievements other than simply landing on the Moon. If nothing else, Beresheet has already sent back some amazing pictures including some from the back-side of the Moon (see below). The launch back in February was successful and the little spacecraft that could has been circling the Earth in an ever-greater elliptical orbit until she reached distances allowing for her to go for Lunar capture. That was the recent maneuver which was successful as Beresheet is now circling the Moon in preparation for landing.

 

Beresheet Back-Side of the Moon

 

Beresheet Back-Side of the Moon

 

Beresheet’s arrival on the Moon could not be timed any more perfectly coinciding with the end of election here in Israel on Earth. For the past few weeks, one could have debated which was flying higher, the rhetoric and accusations between the candidates and their respective parties, the hyperventilating by the media over the Mueller findings (one nothing burger) or Beresheet on her way to rendezvous with the Moon. That was settled when she made the transition into Moon orbit putting all these other lesser things into perspective. This little craft has been through a large area of space since the following picture was released before her launch date.

 

Beresheet Readied for Launch

 

The launch of Beresheet was an accomplishment in any number of ways. The main cargo taken aloft was not Beresheet, but a communications satellite. Furthermore, the different items launched required different orbital incisions with Beresheet requiring an additional burn after the other payloads had been delivered. This was something unprecedented for the Space-X launch teams but it came off according to plan. This is the point where we require showing a video of the planned trajectories, engine fires and everything it is taking to get little Beresheet onto the Moon. Please watch and enjoy.

 

 

Beresheet carries equipment which will collect data on the magnetic field of the Moon and any fluctuations. NASA also provided a laser reflector on the spacecraft, which scientists will use to determine the exact distance to the moon, and to pinpoint the lander’s location. Beresheet also aims to deliver a time capsule to the moon with the Israeli flag, and digital copies of the Israeli national anthem, the Bible, and other national and cultural artifacts. The only sad thing is that Beresheet was designed to function for a mere two days mostly taking pictures and some various readings. We close with additional pictures, enjoy.

 

Moon with Earth in the Background

 

The Beresheet spacecraft’s six-minute deceleration burn Thursday steered the probe into orbit around the moon. Credit: SpaceIL

 

Mission Timeline

 

Photo of the LRA Laser Retroreflector Array image credit NASA-GSFC

 

Arab Peninsula and Southeast Africa image credit SpaceIL and IAI

 

Beyond the Cusp