An upcoming exhibition on Lunokhod 1 and the crews who drove it from Earth. Opening in six weeks.
On 17 November 1970 Lunokhod 1 rolled down the ramp of its landing stage and became the first planetary rover in history. In ten and a half months it covered 10.5 kilometres of the Sea of Rains, returned more than 20,000 images and worked three times longer than its design life.
The exhibition reconstructs the control post in Simferopol: a crew of five — driver, navigator, operator, flight engineer and commander — steered the machine by a picture that arrived seconds late. Visitors will be able to try a simulator with the same signal delay.
The eight-wheel chassis with its mesh rims, the isotope heater and the corner reflector still used for laser ranging of the Moon will be shown as full-size replicas.
تصوير: © Dzis-voynarovskiy / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain
