APOD: Lunokhod: Reflections on a Moon Robot (2010 Jun 06)

[APOD Robot]

Lunokhod: Reflections on a Moon Robot

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.

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[Beyond]

WOW! a Buck Rogers Space Antique. I wonder if Apod or whomever owns it will take it to PBS's Antique Road Show? Should be worth a bundle and its definitely one of a kind. What an unusual Apod.

Did they check the mileage??

[alter-ego]

... 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.

Professionally, lasers are my bag. So I wanted to understand some details about mm-resolution LIDAR, and wrt the moon Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR). The snippet below highlights details of the laser, launch and receiving efficiencies, beam sizes, photon counts, etc. Note the photon count efficiency hit! Even though this article is older(<10 years) and refers to the Apollo corner cube arrays, mm-resolution LLR was its intended focus. But due to non-diffraction limited corner-cube optics and lunar libration effects, the useful laser temporal pulsewidth was limited to ~100ps. Also, the laser filled the entire 3.5 meter Apache Point telescope aperture. --See the paper for more devilish details.

http://www.physics.ucsd.edu/~tmurphy/ap ... matera.pdf

For 1mm resolution, the laser temporal pulse width needs to be ~6 picoseconds. Given the source of useful pulse width limitations, I'm not sure how mm-resolution is expected. I don't think the Russion optics are any better (turns out they have loss problem), and certainly the lunar motion complexity is the same.

Edit: New 2008 results have claimed 1.1mm resolution!! The best I can tell, statistics are better.
http://www.physics.ucsd.edu/~tmurphy/ap ... ights.html

[walfy]

Ten years ago a high-school exchange student from Russia lived with my family for 8 months. I was surprised that he did not believe that the U.S. sent people to land on the moon. It was not taught in his schools. Instead, he told me how they rigged it in a Hollywood-like studio. He was totally serious. So we can assume the Russians suppressed the story of the human moon landings by the U.S., lest their pride get more wounded.

Then this year I learned for the first time that the Russians successfully landed a frickin' rover on the moon, drove it around, all the way back in 1970! (Check out the maps –- they drove it a long way on the moon!) As I grew up in the 70's and 80's, I poured through all of my dad's science magazines, such as Astronomy, Scientific American, Science, etc. He read a lot more than me, devoured all of this info. No mention of a Soviet rover on the moon, by him or by the magazines. Also, in grade school and high-school, the human moon landings were thoroughly covered, but nary a peep on the Russian rover landing on the moon. All I remember is that they intended to land on the moon, developed the spacecrafts, but ended up only sending a few landers.

I was astounded when the first Pathfinder rover putted around on the surface of Mars a decade or so ago. I thought that was the first ever mission of a rover successfully driving around on the surface another world. So to learn that the Russians already did it around 30 years earlier was quite a shock.

Did the Russians suppress news of their successful moon rovers until recently? Or was the American hubris so great at the time that they didn't want to give the Soviets one iota of acknowledgment for their radical and highly successful rover mission on the lunar surface?

[Beyond]

Its a really strange world isn't it?
Speaking of memories; I remember just after Sputniks launch, i was playing baseball (or rather trying to)in Elementary School. I was out in right field and there was about a full moon almost overhead and for some reason i looked up at it and all of a sudden this round object with a few things sticking out of it was visible as it crossed the face of the moon. My first thought was - Sputnik - but then i realized that it did not seem to be that far away and that i would not be able to see Sputnik because it was too high up. In about two or three seconds it was gone.

Many years later i finally got a look at what Sputnik looked like and that was not it. However it did look exactly like a picture of a cave drawing that had a round object with about four stick like objects sticking out of it. The cave drawing had what looked like a window with people visible in it, but what i saw did not have a window.
Even with all the so-called advancements of man-kind, we seem to have missed a lot somewhere along the line.

[Frenchie]

I was astounded when the first Pathfinder rover putted around on the surface of Mars a decade or so ago. I thought that was the first ever mission of a rover successfully driving around on the surface another world. So to learn that the Russians already did it around 30 years earlier was quite a shock.

Did the Russians suppress news of their successful moon rovers until recently? Or was the American hubris so great at the time that they didn't want to give the Soviets one iota of acknowledgment for their radical and highly successful rover mission on the lunar surface?

From a somewhat neutral point in the s.c "cold war" druing the 50s and sixties - viz. France, I remember we followed the lunar adventure with excitement, both the Russian (mostly successes) and the Merlin (lots of failures!). To be honest it was learnt later that the Russian did have failures, even catastrophes, which they did not report, while the Americans showed us many times images of rockets exploding or just failing to leave the ground... such were the systems.

To answer your precise question, the fantastic /lunakhod/ missions were fully publicised, establishing the primacy of the Soviet spatial program at that time without a shadow of a doubt. I think that public Soviet successes in robotic space exploration were one major factor that pushed the US and J F Kennedy to program the manned Apollo mission as an answer - many then and even today did not believe manned missions had such scientific necessity than political and ideological motives...

Even if it's understandable that the US press, media and politicos belittled the authentic Soviet successes in space techniques, I still have a hard time believing no account of the Lunakhod was given to the US public at the time. Is it possible ? Different systems, lies and mind manipulation all the same. Not that it has changed so much nowadays (examples which come to mind, self censored for political correctness)

[orin stepanek]

I guess I'm old enough that I can remember it being launched. I don't recall much else except that it landed there.
Kind of looks like a rolling wash tub in a cute kind of way.

[bridget]

what is the brick for?

[wonderboy]

hahah, i never even seen the brick. Probably some bizarre piece of russian thinking that if they put a brick on the moon it means that they owned it and all the land attached to it. they may be right, only time will tell. Space stations may be charged rent in rubles.


Paul.

[Old-Bill]

Typical of the Soviet regime, it's pretty clear they stole that design straight from H.G. Wells.

[Beyond]

The Apod says that the Lunokhod was designed to operate for 3 months, but roamed around the Moon's surface for 11 months. Just goes to show that the Soviets back then just could not get anything right!

[astrolabe]

Hrllo All,

The brick, of course, is to chock the wheels on an incline. I'm more curious about the chian saw atop the machine.

[Old-Bill]

At least they thought of everything......That chainsaw-looking thing sticking out on top was no doubt intended to handily deal with any trees that may have gotten in their way.

[astrolabe]

Hello Old-Bill,

Yes, I was thinking the same thing at first. I mean after all, until we got our guys up there, who knew. Also, like so many other things about equipment in space, it was probably meant fo one-time use. My guess is it was to be used to cut the tether on the brick in case of some emergency like scooting into a cave if the aliens showed up..........Or (with luck) us!

[ta152h0]

ah, the intake manifold of a MIG 21 fitted with some wheeels and bling. I remember long ago a story about how long and how much money it took to develop a space pen that worked in zero gravity when a bright bulb asked what the russians used, and a low voice answered ' pencils "

[Beyond]

Brick??? - Chainsaw??? - I thought i was as blind as two bats, until i looked closer.
The "brick" is something attached to the frame and about in the middle you can see through to one of the wheels on the other side.
It takes quite a bit of imagination to see what looks like a lazer cannon and call it a chainsaw.

[walfy]

Hmmm... you all can be sarcastic with Russian space technology, but look who will be providing the only means of getting to the Space Station when the shuttles are phased out very soon (just 2 or 3 more flights left for them), when we are still years away from a replacement vehicle.
The Soyuz is super reliable. We know the reliability of the shuttle. Don't knock the Russian space engineers, considering their budget and accomplishments over the last 50 or so years. Good 'ol U.S. of A. is soon to enter a new phase in its proud space history: no means of flying people to space. It's the Russians' turn to snicker.

[hughbeegeebee]

Looks like steampunk.

[rstevenson]

That's the word I was trying to remember. Thanks.

Rob

[zbvhs]

The "chainsaw" thing is a directional antenna on an alt-azimuth mount. The cone-shaped thing is an omni-directional antenna. The two ports with the flip-down covers, I think, were ports for tv cameras providing a binocular view of the lurain ahead. The "brick" appears to be simply a box covered in insulation. The open-mesh wheels represented the Russians' best guess at the Lunar surface. The box on the boom out front was a laser retroreflector array. You have to remember that Lunokhod was a product of the pre-transistor era, so the electronics inside probably used vacuum tubes.

Lunokhod was reported in the U.S. trade press like Aviation Week Magazine, but the Soviets were pretty secretive about just about everything they did and didn't release press kits. Photos of the vehicle were poor-quality picked up from Soviet publications. Unfortunately, the Russian Lunar program was overshadowed by Apollo and didn't get the press it deserved.

Lunokhod was an interesting vehicle indeed. Too bad the Russians weren't inclined to brag about it.

[ta152h0]

bummer, you punctured my balloon. I was having fun reading all the 'funny ' stuff here. Now please pass me an ice cold one from the Colorado mountains.

[Beyond]

Here ya are ta152ho- - - you can "wolf" it down anytime

[Beyond]

Sorry ta152h0, I did not notice my goof in the last post when i called you ta152ho. Its hard to speak correctly when your fingers do the talking. They have no mouth to speak with

[xaxat]

As the web has expanded, processors become faster, and monitors larger, you have reprised a larger, less sepia version of your post from January 9, 1999
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990109.html
I thought it was very cool and very steampunk then and still do. Thank you

[neufer]

New views of Lunokhod 1 and Luna 17 from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
The Planetary Society Blog By Emily Lakdawalla Mar. 14, 2012

[b][color=#0000FF]Russia's Lunokhod 1 rover in its final parking place (38.315°N, 324.992°E) on the surface of Mare Imbrium, imaged by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The inset in the lower left shows an expanded view of the rover. LROC NAC image M175502049RE. Credit: NASA / GSFC / ASU[/color][/b]

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[b][color=#0000FF]Luna 17, the lander that carried the Lunokhod 1 to the surface; debarking ramps for the rover are visible extending down to the surface to the right. Many rover tracks are visible around the lander. LROC NAC image M175502049RE. Credit: NASA / GSFC / ASU[/color][/b]

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<<It is always thrilling to see relics of human exploration out there on other worlds. Today, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera team posted some new photos of two defunct spacecraft: the Luna 17 lander and the Lunokhod 1 rover. I've posted images of the two craft before, but the ones released today are much better. It's still a bit hard to make out the shape of the rover, but you can very clearly see the ramps from Luna 17 down which the rover debarked, and the characteristic parallel tracks and donuts made by a multi-wheeled rover roving and turning in place. Thinking about the Lunokhods and their incredible missions, I'm filled with admiration for what the Russians accomplished with these awesome remotely operated vehicles. They may not ever have achieved human landings on the Moon, but Lunokhod 2 drove 37 kilometers across the lunar surface in 1973. That's pretty amazing.>>