A small spacecraft that has captured the imagination and excitement of people in Israel and around the world appears to have crashed into the moon on Thursday.

“We had a failure in the spacecraft,” Opher Doron, the general manager of Israel Aerospace Industries’ space division, which collaborated on building the spacecraft, said afterward. “We unfortunately have not managed to land successfully.”

The mood at the command center was somber but still celebratory.

“Well we didn't make it, but we definitely tried,” said Morris Kahn, an Israeli telecommunications entrepreneur and president of SpaceIL, the nonprofit that undertook the mission. “And I think the achievement of getting to where we got is really tremendous. I think we can be proud.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who attended the event at the mission’s command center in Yehud, Israel, said, “If at first you don’t succeed, you try again.”