Private Israeli space project Beraehit may close - Donors stopped contribution

The private Israeli space project Berashit may close its flagship program, a probe landing on the moon, in the coming weeks, after its major donors stopped their contributions. This is what the venture's co-founder Kafir Damari said today (Wed) in an interview with Bloomberg.
The Israeli non-profit SpaceIL, which is behind the $100 million program, said that the reduced budget jeopardizes the second planned attempt to land a probe on the moon, using the Berashit 2 spacecraft, whose launch was planned for late 2025.
"Our donors decided not to continue their contribution after transferring $45 million of their original commitment of $90 million. This surprised us. It was not planned," said Demari, the co-founder of SpaceIL, in an interview.
SpaceIL's attempt to become the first private company in the world to successfully land a probe on the moon failed in 2019 after it crashed on the lunar surface. The probe, which was launched on a SpaceX rocket, suffered an engine failure during landing, it was said at the time.
In the time since then, private ventures in Japan and India have also failed in their attempts to land a probe on the moon. If the Genesis 2 mission succeeds, it will include, according to the plan, two probes that will land at different sites on the moon, one of them on the dark side of the moon, an achievement that only China has claimed so far.
The donors to the project, including the Israeli-South African philanthropist Maurice Kahn, who also serves as chairman of SpaceIL, and the donation fund of the French-Israeli media magnate Patrick Darhy and his wife Lina, withdrew from the project last month with a few weeks' notice, Demari said.
"The explanation we received was that due to the 'current times' they decided to direct their donations to other purposes without mentioning specific purposes," he said.
Demari added that according to his understanding, their intention was both global financial uncertainty and the political tensions within Israel surrounding the government's plans to make sweeping changes in the judicial system and the mass protests against them.
In announcing the decision, Kahn said that "these times require us to invest our resources and time in other philanthropic projects", without elaborating beyond that. The Patrick and Lina Derhi Endowment Fund did not respond to requests for comment.