JERUSALEM, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Israel Space Agency (ISA) will allocate 7.25 million new shekels (2 million U.S. dollars) to support a private program to send the first Israeli spacecraft to the moon, the Ministry of Science announced Wednesday.
The sum will bring the total investments in the moon-landing program, undertaken by SpaceIL, an Israeli nonprofit non-profit organization, to 9.25 million new shekels.
SpaceIL first planned to sent a small, unmanned spacecraft to the moon in December, but announced on Wednesday that the launch would be postponed to the beginning of 2019.
The project started as the only Israeli contestant in the international Google Lunar XPRIZE competition. The winner was expected to earn a prize of 20 million dollars to fund the landing of the first non-governmental unmanned spacecraft on the moon.
The competition, however, ended with no winner on March 31, when Google announced that it would no longer sponsor it.
Nevertheless, after raising enough funds, SpaceIL determined to continue its mission.
"SpaceIL's launch and development project will provide Israel an advantage in space research and development of space technologies, which will promote the education of youth in these fields and promote scientific research on the moon," said Israeli Minister of Science Ophir Akunis.
Earlier this month, the ISA announced that it signed an agreement with U.S. space agency NASA to engage in the SpaceIL moon mission.