As a country that takes great pride in its reputation as a “startup nation,” Israel is eager to join the exclusive club of nations with major projects in outer space. It wants to send spacecraft to do research in space and conduct exploratory missions across the solar system, not only to the moon but to the planets as well.

The chances of such projects happening would increase exponentially if it succeeds in convincing the United Arab Emirates to join its Beresheet 2 project to send a research craft to the moon. It would also provide a major boost to cooperation between the two countries, already strengthened  since the signing of the Abraham Accords.

The Beresheet 2 project was initiated by SpaceIL, a nonprofit association founded by businessman philanthropist Morris Kahn, founder of Amdocs, which provides customer management and billing software for large telecom companies. The first Beresheet (Hebrew for “Genesis”) spacecraft was built at the Israel Aircraft Industries’ facilities with the support of the Ministry of Science and Technology’s own Israel Space Agency. At just 1.5 meters in height and with a diameter of 2 meters and a total mass of 600 kg, it is the smallest spacecraft ever designed for a lunar landing.

The original Beresheet spacecraft was launched successfully in the spring of 2019, but contact with it was lost during its lunar landing attempt. It was soon learned that the spacecraft crashed. Two days later, Kahn announced that he planned to go ahead with his Beresheet 2 project, work on which began in December 2020.