SpaceX Falcon 9’s First Private Moon Mission Launch: Where To Watch Live Stream

SpaceX is set to launch the first privately funded mission to land on the Moon on Thursday, at 8:45 p.m. EST at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Elon Musk’s space agency will be launching the Israeli robotic lunar lander, Beresheet, 30 minutes after the takeoff of its Falcon 9 rocket.

You can watch the live streaming of the SpaceX Falcon 9’s launch of the Israeli Moon lander here.

Beresheet is the first Israeli lunar aircraft that was created through a joint venture of non-profit company SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries, the country’s largest aerospace and defense company.

According to Space.com, SpaceIL is one of the companies that participated in the Google Lunar X Prize, which encouraged private firms to create a spacecraft that could launch a mission to the Moon.

If Beresheet successfully lands on the lunar surface, Israel will become the fourth country to ever launch a robotic lander on the Moon. The first was the Soviet Union, which successfully landed the first man-made object on the Moon in 1959, and followed by the U.S., which launched the first manned mission in 1969. Early this year, China successfully landed its lunar exploration mission, Chang’e 4.

The Israeli moon mission will break off from Falcon 9 during orbit at an altitude of roughly 37,000 miles (60,000 kilometers). The lander is then expected to send out communication to its mission center situated in Yehud, Israel. The Israeli mission is going to take two months before it could reach the Moon’s surface. Once there, the lander will study the Moon’s magnetic field and lunar craters.

Beresheet, which means “in the beginning” (the first words in the Bible), is a 1,300-pound lander. It is reportedly equipped with cameras, magnetic sensors, and transmitters to send data back to Earth.

The mission, which is supported by South African billionaire Morris Kahn, roughly cost around $100 million, according to Forbes.

"Since the establishment of SpaceIL, the task of landing an Israeli spacecraft on the moon has become a national project with educational impact," SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries said in a joint statement.

Aside from Beresheet, the SpaceX Falcon 9 will also carry with it the communications satellite PSN-6 (Nusantara Satu) by Indonesian company PT Pasifik Satelit Nusantara. The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory also has the military satellite S5 onboard for launch.