Old Moon Rover Beams Surprising Laser Flashes to Earth

[MeteorWayne]

I think this belongs in another thread, but till I find it...



June 3, 2010: A Soviet robot lost on the dusty plains of the Moon for the past 40 years has been found again, and it is returning surprisingly strong laser pulses to Earth.

"We shined a laser on Lunokhod 1's position, and we were stunned by the power of the reflection," says Tom Murphy of UC San Diego, who leads the research team that's putting the old robot back to work. "Lunokhod 1 is talking to us loudly and clearly."

Almost forgotten in the lore of the Apollo-era space race, Lunokhod 1 was one of the greatest successes of the old Soviet lunar exploration program. In 1970, Time magazine described the robot's historic landing:

"Three hours after reaching the Moon aboard the latest unmanned Russian Moon probe, Luna 17, Lunokhod I (literally "moonwalker") lumbered down one of two ramps extended by the mother ship and moved forward … thus taking the first giant step for robotkind on another celestial body."


The remote-controlled rover traveled almost 7 miles during its 11 month lunar tour, relaying thousands of TV images and hundreds of high-resolution panoramas of the Moon back to Earth. It also sampled and analyzed lunar soil at 500 locations.


Then Lunokhod-1 was lost – until last month when NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter found it again. The recovery is described in an earlier NASA press release....

The APOLLO (Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation) Project:

http://www.physics.ucsd.edu/~tmurphy/apollo/apollo.html

 

[OleNewt]

I wonder what it was doing this whole time, and whether any of its information is useful anymore.

 

[MeteorWayne]

It was just sitting there, as it's doing now

 

[3488]

Thanks Wayne, remarkable. Such a strong return too. Shows the reflector on Lunokhod 1 has not deteriorated.

Some pans returned by the historic Soviet rover.







Andrew Brown.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Today's APOD is an image of Lunokhod

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100606.html

"Explanation: It may look like some sort of cute alien robot, but it was created here on Earth, launched to the Moon in 1970, and now reflects laser light in a scientifically useful way. On November 17, 1970 the Soviet Luna 17 spacecraft landed the first roving remote-controlled robot on the Moon. Known as Lunokhod 1, it weighed just under 2,000 pounds and was designed to operate for 90 days while guided in real-time by a five person team near Moscow, USSR. Lunokhod 1 toured the lunar Sea of Rains (Mare Imbrium) for 11 months in one of the greatest successes of the Soviet lunar exploration program. This Lunokhod's operations officially ceased in 1971. Earlier this year, however, the position of the rover was recovered by NASA's moon-orbiting Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Given that position, laser pulses from Earth were successfully bounced off the old robot's reflector. Bouncing laser pulses off of this and other lunar reflectors could yield range data to the moon accurate enough to track millimeter-sized deviations in the Moon's orbit, effectively probing lunar composition and testing gravitational theories."

 

[MarkStanaway]

Its great to see that Lunokhod 1 has been located and its Laser reflector is still functional. You might be interested in this description of the challenge presented in operating this craft by remote control from earth.

'A team of five based at Simferopol in the Crimea near the big tracking dishes at Yevpatoria operated Lunokhod. Two teams took alternating shifts and each consisted of a commander, a driver, a navigator, an engineer, and a radio/antenna man. Operating Lunokhod from 380,000 km away was a tense business requiring a high degree of co-ordination between the team members. During the first few days excitement was such that scientists and journalists crowded mission control and began offering advice like “Mind that crater!” or “He’s going to crash into that rock!” The situation was so tense that when the drivers’ pulses reached 140, Babakin the director, finally had enough and ordered the chorus of back seat drivers out of the control room to reduce the stress on his team. It was quickly determined that the cameras were mounted too low on the body of Lunokhod with the view being similar to someone crawling across the ground on their hands and legs and the 20 second per frame transmission rate was too slow as drivers had to memorise features a full third of a minute before they were on top of them. These faults were rectified on Lunokhod 2. Also operations had to be halted at lunar noon (two earth days) as the landscape was washed out and there were no shadows to pick out features.'

'The amazing Lunokhod continued to operate for just over 10 months. It had been designed for a three month mission. During that time it travelled over 10 km, sent back 20,000 pictures including 200 panoramas, and X-rayed the soil at 25 locations. The driving teams and scientists were exhausted having worked 10 hour shifts 14 days at a time (1 lunar day) with a break at lunar noon. They took breaks and reviewed their data during the 14 day lunar night. Initially Babakin’s team were under pressure from Pravda and Tass to set new distance records which irked the scientific team who wanted to stop and investigate interesting rocks and other features. At one point Babakin remarked to the science team leader that this was a Lunokhod not a Lunostop! The little robot finally died on 4th October when its Polonium heat source gave out and pressure rapidly dropped in its sealed container with the wheels stopping and TV pictures and signals being cut off. Its accomplishments were even more remarkable when it was later revealed that the brakes had failed in the ‘on’ position quite early in the mission and it had been operating against their friction for most of the time!'

http://www.funtrivia.com/quizdetails.cfm?quiz=273348

Mark

 

[MeteorWayne]

Thanx Mark, great stuff!

 

[Woggles]

Ya, thanks Mark!