In April 2019, the Israeli lunar spacecraft Bereshit is preparing to perform a soft landing on the surface of an earth satellite. If everything passes without problems, then Israel will become the fourth country that managed to land a spacecraft on the Moon (previously the USSR, China and America have already done this).
Since the country wants to connect to an active space exploration, it was decided to establish one of the most important symbols of the space era of the 20th century - a monument to the first cosmonaut of the Earth, Yuri Gagarin. It was his flight that confirmed that man is able to get out of the borders of his home planet and marked the space race between the USSR and the USA.
The bust of Gagarin, made of bronze, displays the head of an astronaut in a helmet. The location chosen is the largest (in seventh place in terms of population) Israeli city of Netanya. More specifically, you will find a new bust of Gagarin in the cultural and scientific center “Planetania”.
The monument was made and installed by the representatives of the Dialogue of Cultures - United World Foundation. The author was sculptor Alexey Leonov, and the ceremony itself took place on March 28, 2019. The celebration was attended not only by Israeli representatives, but also by diplomats from Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus. The gift was a congratulation from the International Space Station, broadcast in real time from Russian cosmonauts. The installation of the monument allowed to celebrate three events at once: the future landing of an Israeli probe on the moon, 85 years since the birth of Gagarin and 58 years since the first human space flight.
The Bereshit device should land on April 11-12 on the lunar surface. Interestingly, the date may coincide with Gagarin's flight into space (April 12, 1961).
Recall that the spacecraft should function on the surface for about two days. It will then fail due to overheating of the electronics and batteries (the probe does not have a cooling system or thermal protection). In this short time, Bereshit should have time to measure the magnetic field of an earth satellite several times.
