Israeli spacecraft

Only three countries have completed the formidable task of landing a spacecraft on the lunar surface - the United States, Russia and China.

The nation holds its breath as Beresheet is meant to escape the Earth’s gravitational pull on Thursday, will the April 11 celebrations be held or will it melt near the sun?

The spacecraft is in its largest elliptical orbit around the earth and is scheduled to intersect the moon’s orbit and be captured in it on April 4 at 251,655 miles from earth.

SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries engineers completed the maneuver at 3:11 p.m. local time.

Tiny Israel is again in the news, this time for something remarkable for any nation.

"Day one of a year in space, and I’m thinking to myself, man, this is a stupid thing to be doing. You can’t get away, you can’t call an Uber."

The children of the Arava kindergarten suggested that they too can build a spacecraft to send to the moon.

“The spacecraft project will enable every Israeli, but especially future generations, to understand that even the citizens of a small country may and should dream big."

This week the spacecraft underwent temperature and pressure testing to make sure the spacecraft can hold up when launched into orbit.