It is only the size of a dishwasher and weighs as much as a giant panda, but its inventors are hoping this spacecraft will go where no other Israeli vessel has gone before — to the moon.
Working on a shoestring budget, the Israeli scientists and engineers building the shuttle — temporarily named "Sparrow" — believe it will land on the moon by the end of 2015, a feat only the United States, Russia and China have managed so far.
The landing will be the toughest task in the mission, not least because of the moon's many mountains and craters, said Yariv Bash, an electronic engineer and a co-founder of SpaceIL, the group building the spacecraft.