Lunokhod programme
Encyclopedia
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
robotic
Robotic spacecraft
A robotic spacecraft is a spacecraft with no humans on board, that is usually under telerobotic control. A robotic spacecraft designed to make scientific research measurements is often called a space probe. Many space missions are more suited to telerobotic rather than crewed operation, due to...
lunar rover
Rover (space exploration)
A rover is a space exploration vehicle designed to move across the surface of a planet or other astronomical body. Some rovers have been designed to transport members of a human spaceflight crew; others have been partially or fully autonomous robots...
s designed to land on the Moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
between 1969 and 1977. The 1969 Lunokhod 1A was destroyed during launch, the 1970 Lunokhod 1 and the 1973 Lunokhod 2 landed on the moon and the 1977 Lunokhod was never launched. The successful missions were in operation concurrently with the Zond and Luna series of Moon flyby, orbiter and landing missions. The Lunokhods were primarily designed to support the Soviet manned moon missions
Soviet Moonshot
The Soviet manned lunar programs were a series of programs pursued by the Soviet Union to land a man on the Moon in competition with the United States Apollo program to achieve the same goal set publicly by President John F. Kennedy on May 25, 1961...
and to be used as automatic remote-controlled robots to explore the surface and return pictures. The Lunokhods were transported to the lunar surface by Luna spacecraft, which were launched by Proton rocket
Proton rocket
Proton is an expendable launch system used for both commercial and Russian government space launches. The first Proton rocket was launched in 1965 and the launch system is still in use as of 2011, which makes it one of the most successful heavy boosters in the history of spaceflight...
s. The moon lander part of the Luna spacecraft for Lunokhods were similar to the ones for sample return missions. The Lunokhods were designed by Alexander Kemurdjian at NPO Lavochkin. Not until the 1997 Mars Pathfinder
Mars Pathfinder
Mars Pathfinder was an American spacecraft that landed a base station with roving probe on Mars in 1997. It consisted of a lander, renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station, and a lightweight wheeled robotic rover named Sojourner.Launched on December 4, 1996 by NASA aboard a Delta II booster a...
was another remote-controlled vehicle put on an extraterrestrial body. In 2010, nearly forty years after the 1971 loss of signal from Lunokhod 1, the NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
The Lunar Precursor Robotic Program is a program of robotic spacecraft missions which NASA will use to prepare for future human spaceflight missions to the Moon. Two LPRP missions, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite , were launched in June 2009...
photographed its tracks and final location, and researchers, using a telescopic pulsed-laser rangefinder, detected the robot's retroreflector
Retroreflector
A retroreflector is a device or surface that reflects light back to its source with a minimum scattering of light. An electromagnetic wave front is reflected back along a vector that is parallel to but opposite in direction from the wave's source. The device or surface's angle of incidence is...
.
Development
Colonization of the Moon
The colonization of the Moon is the proposed establishment of permanent human communities on the Moon. Advocates of space exploration have seen settlement of the Moon as a logical step in the expansion of humanity beyond the Earth. Recent indication that water might be present in noteworthy...
s. It was intended that the spacecraft would provide a radio beacon for precision landings of manned spacecraft. Also, the vehicle was designed to be used by a single cosmonaut to move from the primary LK lander to the back-up LK Lander
LK Lander
The LK was a Soviet lunar lander and counterpart of the American Lunar Module . The LK was to have landed up to two cosmonauts on the Moon...
s in case of failure. Instead, it was used for remote exploration of the lunar surface after the successful Apollo manned lunar landings.
In mid-1968, at the KIP-10 or NIP-10 (КИП-10 or НИП-10) in the secret village Shkolnoye (:ru:Школьное (Крым)), near Simferopol
Simferopol
-Russian Empire and Civil War:The city was renamed Simferopol in 1784 after the annexation of the Crimean Khanate to the Russian Empire by Catherine II of Russia. The name Simferopol is derived from the Greek, Συμφερόπολις , translated as "the city of usefulness." In 1802, Simferopol became the...
, a lunodrom (moondrome) was built. It covered an area of one hectare (120 meters by 70 meters) and was very similar to some parts of the lunar surface. It was constructed using more than 3,000 cubic meters of soil, and included 54 craters up to 16 m in diameter and around about 160 rocks of various sizes. The whole area was surrounded with bricks, painted in gray and black. It was used to analyze problems with the Lunokhod chassis.
At least four complete vehicles were constructed, with the serial numbers 201, 203, 204 and 205.
Lunokhod 201
After years of secret engineering development and training, the first Lunokhod (vehicle 8ЕЛ№201)was launched on February 19, 1969. Within a few seconds the rocket disintegrated and the first Lunokhod was lost. The rest of the world did not learn of the rocket's valuable payload until years later.Lunokhod 1
After the destruction of the original Lunokhod, Soviet engineers began work immediately on another lunar vehicle. Lunokhod 1Lunokhod 1
Lunokhod 1 was the first of two unmanned lunar rovers landed on the Moon by the Soviet Union as part of its Lunokhod program. The spacecraft which carried Lunokhod 1 was named Luna 17...
(vehicle 8ЕЛ№203) was the first of two unmanned lunar rovers successfully landed on the Moon by the Soviet Union as part of its Lunokhod program. The spacecraft which carried Lunokhod 1 was named Luna 17
Luna 17
-External links:*...
. Lunokhod was the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another world.
Luna 17 was launched on November 10, 1970 at 14:44:01 UTC. After reaching Earth parking orbit
Parking orbit
A parking orbit is a temporary orbit used during the launch of a satellite or other space probe. A launch vehicle boosts into the parking orbit, then coasts for a while, then fires again to enter the final desired trajectory...
, the final stage of Luna 17's launching rocket fired to place it into a trajectory towards the Moon (November 10, 1970 at 14:54 UTC). After two course correction manoeuvres (on November 12 and 14) it entered lunar orbit on November 15, 1970 at 22:00 UTC.
The spacecraft soft-landed on the Moon in the Sea of Rains
Mare Imbrium
Mare Imbrium, Latin for "Sea of Showers" or "Sea of Rains", is a vast lunar mare filling a basin on Earth's Moon and one of the larger craters in the Solar System. Mare Imbrium was created when lava flooded the giant crater formed when a very large object hit the Moon long ago...
on November 17, 1970 at 03:47 UTC. The lander had dual ramps from which the payload, Lunokhod 1, could descend to the lunar surface. At 06:28 UT the rover moved onto the Moon's surface.
To be able to work in vacuum a special fluoride based lubricant was used for the mechanical parts and the electric motors (one in each wheel hub) were enclosed in pressurised containers.
The rover ran during the lunar day, stopping occasionally to recharge its batteries via the solar panels. At night the rover hibernated until the next sunrise, heated by the radioisotope heater unit
Radioisotope heater unit
Radioisotope heater units are small devices that provide heat through radioactive decay. They are similar to tiny radioisotope thermoelectric generators , and normally provide about one watt of heat each, derived from the decay of a few grams of plutonium 238, although other radioactive isotopes...
.
Rover description
Helical antenna
A helical antenna is an antenna consisting of a conducting wire wound in the form of a helix. In most cases, helical antennas are mounted over a ground plane. The feed line is connected between the bottom of the helix and the ground plane...
, four television cameras, and special extendable devices to impact the lunar soil for density measurements and mechanical property tests.
An X-ray spectrometer, an X-ray telescope
X-ray telescope
An X-ray telescope is a telescope that is designed to observe remote objects in the X-ray spectrum. In order to get above the Earth's atmosphere, which is opaque to X-rays, X-ray telescopes must be mounted on high altitude rockets or artificial satellites.-Optical design:X-ray telescopes can use...
, Cosmic Ray Detector, and a Laser
Laser
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of photons. The term "laser" originated as an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation...
device were also included. The vehicle was powered by batteries
Battery (electricity)
An electrical battery is one or more electrochemical cells that convert stored chemical energy into electrical energy. Since the invention of the first battery in 1800 by Alessandro Volta and especially since the technically improved Daniell cell in 1836, batteries have become a common power...
which were recharged during the lunar day by a solar cell
Solar cell
A solar cell is a solid state electrical device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect....
array mounted on the underside of the lid. During the lunar nights, the lid was closed and a polonium
Polonium
Polonium is a chemical element with the symbol Po and atomic number 84, discovered in 1898 by Marie Skłodowska-Curie and Pierre Curie. A rare and highly radioactive element, polonium is chemically similar to bismuth and tellurium, and it occurs in uranium ores. Polonium has been studied for...
-210 heat source kept the internal components at operating temperature
Operating temperature
An operating temperature is the temperature at which an electrical or mechanical device operates. The device will operate effectively within a specified temperature range which varies based on the device function and application context, and ranges from the minimum operating temperature to the...
.
The rover stood 135 cm (4 ft 5 in) high and had a mass of 840 kg (1,850 lb). It was about 170 cm (5 ft 7 in) long and 160 cm (4 ft 11 in) wide and had eight wheels each with an independent suspension, motor and brake. The rover had two speeds, ~1 km/h and ~2 km/h (0.6 mph and 1.2 mph).
Payload
- Cameras (two TV & four panoramic telephotometers)
- RIFMA X-ray fluorescence spectrometer
- RT-1 X-ray telescope
- PrOP odometer/penetrometer
- RV-2N radiation detector
- TL laser retroreflector
Lunokhod 2
Lunokhod 2
Lunokhod 2 was the second of two unmanned lunar rovers landed on the Moon by the Soviet Union as part of the Lunokhod program....
(vehicle 8ЕЛ№204) was the second and more advanced of two unmanned lunar rovers landed on the Moon by the Soviet Union as part of the Lunokhod program.
The launcher put the spacecraft into Earth parking orbit on January 8, 1973, followed by translunar injection. On January 12, 1973, Luna 21 was braked into a 90 by 100 km (approx. 56 by 62 mile) lunar orbit
Lunar orbit
In astronomy, lunar orbit refers to the orbit of an object around the Moon.As used in the space program, this refers not to the orbit of the Moon about the Earth, but to orbits by various manned or unmanned spacecraft around the Moon...
.
The Luna 21
Luna 21
-External links:*...
spacecraft landed on the Moon and deployed the second Soviet lunar rover, Lunokhod 2. The primary objectives of the mission were to collect images of the lunar surface, examine ambient light levels to determine the feasibility of astronomical observations from the Moon, perform laser ranging experiments from Earth, observe solar X-rays, measure local magnetic fields, and study mechanical properties of the lunar surface material.
The landing occurred on January 15, 1973 at 23:35 UT in Le Monnier crater at 25.85 degrees N, 30.45 degrees E.
After landing, the Lunokhod 2 took TV images of the surrounding area, then rolled down a ramp to the surface at 01:14 UT on 1973-01-16 and took pictures of the Luna 21 lander and landing site.
Rover description
Lunokhod 2 was equipped with three slow-scan televisionSlow-scan television
Slow-scan television is a picture transmission method used mainly by amateur radio operators, to transmit and receive static pictures via radio in monochrome or color.A technical term for SSTV is narrowband television...
cameras, one mounted high on the rover for navigation, which could return high resolution images at different rates—3.2, 5.7, 10.9 or 21.1 seconds per frame (not frames per second). These images were used by a five-man team of controllers on Earth who sent driving commands to the rover in real time. There were 4 panoramic cameras mounted on the rover.
Power was supplied by a solar panel
Photovoltaic module
A solar panel is a packaged, connected assembly of solar cells, also known as photovoltaic cells...
on the inside of a round hinged lid which covered the instrument bay, which would charge the batteries when opened. A polonium
Polonium
Polonium is a chemical element with the symbol Po and atomic number 84, discovered in 1898 by Marie Skłodowska-Curie and Pierre Curie. A rare and highly radioactive element, polonium is chemically similar to bismuth and tellurium, and it occurs in uranium ores. Polonium has been studied for...
-210 radioactive heat source was used to keep the rover warm during the long lunar nights.
Scientific instruments included a Soil Mechanics
Soil mechanics
Soil mechanics is a branch of engineering mechanics that describes the behavior of soils. It differs from fluid mechanics and solid mechanics in the sense that soils consist of a heterogeneous mixture of fluids and particles but soil may also contain organic solids, liquids, and gasses and other...
tester, Solar
Solar
Solar may refer to:Astronomy* Of or relating to the Sun** A device that utilizes solar energy** Solar calendar, a calendar whose dates indicate the position of the earth on its revolution around the sun* Solar Maximum Mission, a satellite...
X-ray
X-ray
X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz and energies in the range 120 eV to 120 keV. They are shorter in wavelength than UV rays and longer than gamma...
experiment, an Astrophotometer to measure visible and Ultraviolet
Ultraviolet
Ultraviolet light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays, in the range 10 nm to 400 nm, and energies from 3 eV to 124 eV...
light levels, a Magnetometer
Magnetometer
A magnetometer is a measuring instrument used to measure the strength or direction of a magnetic field either produced in the laboratory or existing in nature...
deployed in front of the rover on the end of a 2.5 m
Metre
The metre , symbol m, is the base unit of length in the International System of Units . Originally intended to be one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth's equator to the North Pole , its definition has been periodically refined to reflect growing knowledge of metrology...
(8 ft 2 in) boom, a Radiometer
Radiometer
A radiometer is a device for measuring the radiant flux of electromagnetic radiation. Generally, the term radiometer denotes an infrared radiation detector, yet it also includes detectors operating on any electromagnetic wavelength....
, a Photodetector (Rubin-1) for laser detection experiments, and a French-supplied laser Corner Reflector.
Payload
- Cameras (three TV & four panoramic telephotometers)
- RIFMA-M X-ray fluorescenceX-ray fluorescenceX-ray fluorescence is the emission of characteristic "secondary" X-rays from a material that has been excited by bombarding with high-energy X-rays or gamma rays...
spectrometer - X-ray telescopeX-ray telescopeAn X-ray telescope is a telescope that is designed to observe remote objects in the X-ray spectrum. In order to get above the Earth's atmosphere, which is opaque to X-rays, X-ray telescopes must be mounted on high altitude rockets or artificial satellites.-Optical design:X-ray telescopes can use...
- PROP odometerOdometerAn odometer or odograph is an instrument that indicates distance traveled by a vehicle, such as a bicycle or automobile. The device may be electronic, mechanical, or a combination of the two. The word derives from the Greek words hodós and métron...
/penetrometerPenetrometerA penetrometer is a device to test the strength of a material such as soil. There are many types of penetrometer. They are usually round or cone shaped. The penetrometer is dropped on the test subject or pressed against it and the depth of the resulting hole is measured. The measurements determine... - RV-2N-LS radiation detector
- TL laser retroreflectorRetroreflectorA retroreflector is a device or surface that reflects light back to its source with a minimum scattering of light. An electromagnetic wave front is reflected back along a vector that is parallel to but opposite in direction from the wave's source. The device or surface's angle of incidence is...
- AF-3L UV/visible astrophotometer
- SG-70A magnetometerMagnetometerA magnetometer is a measuring instrument used to measure the strength or direction of a magnetic field either produced in the laboratory or existing in nature...
- Rubin 1 photodetectorPhotodetectorPhotosensors or photodetectors are sensors of light or other electromagnetic energy. There are several varieties:*Active pixel sensors are image sensors consisting of an integrated circuit that contains an array of pixel sensors, each pixel containing a both a light sensor and an active amplifier...
Lunokhod 3
Moon landing
A moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both manned and unmanned missions. The first human-made object to reach the surface of the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2 mission on 13 September 1959. The United States's Apollo 11 was the first manned...
in 1977, but never flew to the Moon due to lack of launchers and funding. It remains at the NPO Lavochkin museum.
Results
During its 322 Earth days of operations, Lunokhod 1Lunokhod 1
Lunokhod 1 was the first of two unmanned lunar rovers landed on the Moon by the Soviet Union as part of its Lunokhod program. The spacecraft which carried Lunokhod 1 was named Luna 17...
traveled 10.5 km and returned more than 20,000 TV images and 206 high-resolution panoramas. In addition, it performed twenty-five soil analyses with its RIFMA x-ray fluorescence spectrometer and used its penetrometer at 500 different locations.
Lunokhod 2
Lunokhod 2
Lunokhod 2 was the second of two unmanned lunar rovers landed on the Moon by the Soviet Union as part of the Lunokhod program....
operated for about 4 months, covered 37 km (23 miles) of terrain, including hilly upland areas and rilles, and currently holds the record for the longest distance of surface travel of any extraterrestrial vehicle. It sent back 86 panoramic images and over 80,000 TV pictures. Many mechanical tests of the surface, laser ranging measurements, and other experiments were completed during this time.
For comparison, the similarly sized NASA Mars Exploration Rover
Mars Exploration Rover
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission is an ongoing robotic space mission involving two rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, exploring the planet Mars...
s, Spirit
Spirit rover
Spirit, MER-A , is a robotic rover on Mars, active from 2004 to 2010. It was one of two rovers of NASA's ongoing Mars Exploration Rover Mission. It landed successfully on Mars at 04:35 Ground UTC on January 4, 2004, three weeks before its twin, Opportunity , landed on the other side of the planet...
and Opportunity
Opportunity rover
Opportunity, MER-B , is a robotic rover on the planet Mars, active since 2004. It is the remaining rover in NASA's ongoing Mars Exploration Rover Mission...
had, by their fifth anniversary in January 2009, traveled a total of 21 km (13 mi) and transmitted over 125,000 images.
Chernobyl Legacy
According to a French documentary TV film "Tank on the MoonTank on the Moon
Tank on the Moon is a documentary film about the development, launch, and operation of the Soviet Moon exploration rovers, Lunokhod 1 and Lunokhod 2 in the period from 1970 to 1973. The film uses historical footage from American, Russian and French archives....
" by Jean Afanassieff, the Lunokhod design returned to limelight 15 years later due to the Chernobyl
Chernobyl
Chernobyl or Chornobyl is an abandoned city in northern Ukraine, in Kiev Oblast, near the border with Belarus. The city had been the administrative centre of the Chernobyl Raion since 1932....
nuclear power plant
Nuclear power plant
A nuclear power plant is a thermal power station in which the heat source is one or more nuclear reactors. As in a conventional thermal power station the heat is used to generate steam which drives a steam turbine connected to a generator which produces electricity.Nuclear power plants are usually...
disaster. The East German made remote controlled bulldozer
Bulldozer
A bulldozer is a crawler equipped with a substantial metal plate used to push large quantities of soil, sand, rubble, etc., during construction work and typically equipped at the rear with a claw-like device to loosen densely-compacted materials.Bulldozers can be found on a wide range of sites,...
s available to Soviet civil defense
Civil defense
Civil defense, civil defence or civil protection is an effort to protect the citizens of a state from military attack. It uses the principles of emergency operations: prevention, mitigation, preparation, response, or emergency evacuation, and recovery...
troops weighed dozens of tons. Too heavy to operate on the remaining parts of the partially collapsed reactor building roof. Human laborers could not be employed effectively to shovel
Shovel
A shovel is a tool for digging, lifting, and moving bulk materials, such as soil, coal, gravel, snow, sand, or ore. Shovels are extremely common tools that are used extensively in agriculture, construction, and gardening....
debris, since work shifts were limited to 90 second intervals due to intense ionizing radiation
Ionizing radiation
Ionizing radiation is radiation composed of particles that individually have sufficient energy to remove an electron from an atom or molecule. This ionization produces free radicals, which are atoms or molecules containing unpaired electrons...
.
Lunokhod designers were called back from retirement, and in two weeks rovers used nuclear decay heat sources for internal rack climate control, their electronic systems were already Hardened to resist radiation. This benefit allowed the 1986 designers to quickly devise a derived vehicle type for nuclear disaster recovery work. Eventually two rovers were delivered to the Chernobyl accident zone and proved useful for clearing debris, earning awards for the designers. Due to extremely high radiation levels, all rovers eventually failed, and human workers (later named liquidators
Liquidator (Chernobyl)
Liquidators , or "clean-up workers", is the name given in the former USSR to people who were called upon to work in efforts to deal with consequences of the April 26, 1986, Chernobyl disaster on the site of the event...
) were called in.
Locations and ownership
Until 2010, the final location of Lunokhod 1 was uncertain by a few kilometers. Lunar laser ranging experimentLunar laser ranging experiment
The ongoing Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment measures the distance between the Earth and the Moon using laser ranging. Lasers on Earth are aimed at retroreflectors planted on the moon during the Apollo program, and the time for the reflected light to return is determined...
s had failed to detect a return signal from its retroreflector since the 1970s. On March 17, 2010, Albert Abdrakhimov found both the lander and the rover in Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
The Lunar Precursor Robotic Program is a program of robotic spacecraft missions which NASA will use to prepare for future human spaceflight missions to the Moon. Two LPRP missions, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite , were launched in June 2009...
image M114185541RC. On April 22, Tom Murphy (UCSD) and Russet McMillan at the Apache Point Observatory
Apache Point Observatory
The Apache Point Observatory is located in the Sacramento Mountains in Sunspot, New Mexico 18 miles south of Cloudcroft. The observatory consists of the Astrophysical Research Consortium's 3.5-meter telescope, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey 2.5-m telescope with a 20" photometric telescope,...
detected the robot's retroreflector using the Apache Point telescopic pulsed-laser rangefinder.
Lunokhod 2 continues to be detected by lunar laser ranging experiment
Lunar laser ranging experiment
The ongoing Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment measures the distance between the Earth and the Moon using laser ranging. Lasers on Earth are aimed at retroreflectors planted on the moon during the Apollo program, and the time for the reflected light to return is determined...
s and its position is known to sub-meter accuracy. Ownership of Lunokhod 2 and the Luna 21 lander was sold by the Lavochkin
Lavochkin
NPO Lavochkin is a Russian aerospace company. It is a major player in the Russian space program, being the developer and manufacturer of the Fregat upper stage, as well as interplanetary probes such as Phobos Grunt...
Association for in December 1993 at a Sotheby's
Sotheby's
Sotheby's is the world's fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674, the second oldest is Göteborgs Auktionsverk founded in 1681 and third oldest being founded in 1731, all Swedish...
auction in New York (although the catalog incorrectly lists lot 68A as Luna 17/Lunokhod 1). The buyer was computer gaming entrepreneur and astronaut's son Richard Garriott
Richard Garriott
Richard Allen Garriott is a British-American video game developer and entrepreneur.He is also known as his alter egos Lord British in Ultima and General British in Tabula Rasa...
(also known by his gaming character Lord British), who stated in a 2001 interview: "I purchased Lunakod 21 [sic] from the Russians. I am now the world's only private owner of an object on a foreign celestial body. Though there are international treaties that say no government shall lay claim to geography off planet earth, I am not a government. Summarily, I claim the moon in the name of Lord British!" In 2007, Garriott said he is the owner of Lunokhod 2.
See also
- Exploration of the MoonExploration of the MoonThe physical exploration of the Moon began when Luna 2, a space probe launched by the Soviet Union, made an impact on the surface of the Moon on September 14, 1959. Prior to that the only available means of exploration had been observation. The invention of the optical telescope brought about the...
- Google Lunar X PRIZEGoogle Lunar X PrizeThe Google Lunar X PRIZE, abbreviated GLXP, sometimes referred to as Moon 2.0, is a space competition organized by the X Prize Foundation, and sponsored by Google. It was announced at the Wired Nextfest on 13 September 2007...
- Mars Exploration Rovers
- Mars PathfinderMars PathfinderMars Pathfinder was an American spacecraft that landed a base station with roving probe on Mars in 1997. It consisted of a lander, renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station, and a lightweight wheeled robotic rover named Sojourner.Launched on December 4, 1996 by NASA aboard a Delta II booster a...
External links
- Lunar and Planetary Department Moscow University
- Exploring the Moon (1969-1976) - a diary of significant events in Soviet lunar exploration, including those associated with the Lunokhod programme
- Don P. Mitchell's catalog of Soviet Moon Images including many from the Lunokhod programme
- Lunakhod article at Lunarpedia
- http://www.panoramio.com/photo/8994008Tests of breadboard models of lunokhods on moonodrome(лунодром - moondrome in Russian) near SimferopolSimferopol-Russian Empire and Civil War:The city was renamed Simferopol in 1784 after the annexation of the Crimean Khanate to the Russian Empire by Catherine II of Russia. The name Simferopol is derived from the Greek, Συμφερόπολις , translated as "the city of usefulness." In 1802, Simferopol became the...
in 1969] - Remote control lunokhods and planetrovers
- Crews lunokhods
- Details of the cameras used in the Lunokhods (about half way down the page, or search the page for "Lunokhod")