Who stopped the lunar rover on the moon. Lunokhod

On November 17, 1970, the Luna-17 automatic station delivered the world's first planetary rover, Lunokhod-1, to the surface of the Moon. USSR scientists successfully implemented this program and took another step not only in the race with the USA, but also in the study of the Universe.

"Lunokhod-0"

Oddly enough, Lunokhod-1 is not the first lunar rover to launch from the surface of the Earth. The path to the Moon was long and difficult. By trial and error, Soviet scientists paved the way to space. Indeed, it’s always hard for pioneers! Tsiolkovsky also dreamed of a “lunar carriage” that would move on its own on the Moon and make discoveries. The great scientist looked into the water! – On February 19, 1969, the Proton launch vehicle, which is still used to obtain the first cosmic speed necessary to enter orbit, was launched in order to send an interplanetary station into outer space. But during acceleration, the head fairing that covered the lunar rover began to collapse under the influence of friction and high temperatures - debris fell into the fuel tank, which led to an explosion and the complete destruction of the unique rover. This project was called "Lunokhod-0".

"Korolevsky" lunar rover

But even Lunokhod-0 was not the first. The design of the device, which was supposed to move on the Moon like a radio-controlled car, began in the early 1960s. The space race with the United States, which started in 1957, spurred Soviet scientists to bold work on complex projects. The planetary rover program was taken up by the most authoritative design bureau - the design bureau of Sergei Pavlovich Korolev. Back then, they didn’t yet know what the surface of the Moon was like: was it solid or covered with a centuries-old layer of dust? That is, first it was necessary to design the method of movement itself, and only then move directly to the apparatus. After much searching, we decided to focus on a hard surface and make the chassis of the lunar vehicle tracked. This was done by VNII-100 (later VNII TransMash), which specialized in the manufacture of tank chassis - the project was led by Alexander Leonovich Kemurdzhian. The “Korolevsky” (as it was later called) lunar rover resembled in its appearance a shiny metal turtle on tracks - with a “shell” in the form of a hemisphere and straight metal fields below, like the rings of Saturn. Looking at this lunar rover, it becomes a little sad that it was not destined to fulfill its purpose.

World famous lunar rover Babakin

In 1965, due to the extreme workload of the manned lunar program, Sergei Pavlovich transferred the automatic lunar program to Georgy Nikolaevich Babakin at the design bureau of the Khimki Machine-Building Plant named after S.A. Lavochkina. Korolev made this decision with a heavy heart. He was used to being the first in his business, but even his genius could not cope with the colossal amount of work alone, so it was wise to divide the work. It should be noted that Babakin coped with the task brilliantly! It was partly to his advantage that in 1966, the automatic interplanetary station Luna-9 made a soft landing on Selena, and Soviet scientists finally received an accurate understanding of the surface of the Earth’s natural satellite. After this, adjustments were made to the lunar rover design, the chassis was changed, and the entire appearance underwent significant changes. Babakin's Lunokhod met with rave reviews from all over the world - both among scientists and ordinary people. Hardly any media in the world has ignored this brilliant invention. It seems that even now – in a photograph from a Soviet magazine – the lunar rover stands before our eyes, like a smart robot in the form of a large pan on wheels with many intricate antennas.

But what is he like?

The size of the lunar rover is comparable to a modern passenger car, but this is where the similarities end and the differences begin. The lunar rover has eight wheels, and each of them has its own drive, which provided the device with all-terrain qualities. The Lunokhod could move forward and backward at two speeds and make turns in place and while moving. The instrument compartment (in the “pan”) housed the equipment of the on-board systems. The solar panel opened up like a piano lid during the day and closed at night. It provided recharging for all systems. A radioisotope heat source (using radioactive decay) heated the equipment in the dark, when the temperature dropped from +120 degrees to -170. By the way, 1 lunar day is equal to 24 earthly days. The Lunokhod was intended to study the chemical composition and properties of lunar soil, as well as radioactive and X-ray cosmic radiation. The device was equipped with two television cameras (one backup), four telephotometers, X-ray and radiation measuring instruments, a highly directional antenna (discussed later) and other cunning equipment.

"Lunokhod-1", or a non-children's radio-controlled toy

We will not go into details - this is a topic for a separate article - but one way or another, Lunokhod 1 ended up on Selene. An automatic station took him there, that is, there were no people there, and the lunar machine had to be controlled from Earth. Each crew consisted of five people: commander, driver, flight engineer, navigator and highly directional antenna operator. The latter needed to ensure that the antenna always “looked” at the Earth, providing radio communication with the lunar rover. There are approximately 400,000 km between the Earth and the Moon and the radio signal, with which it was possible to correct the movement of the device, traveled this distance in 1.5 seconds, and the image from the Moon was formed - depending on the landscape - from 3 to 20 seconds. So it turned out that while the image was being formed, the lunar rover continued to move, and after the image appeared, the crew could detect their vehicle already in the crater. Due to the great tension, the crews replaced each other every two hours.
Thus, Lunokhod-1, designed for 3 earthly months of operation, worked on the Moon for 301 days. During this time, he traveled 10,540 meters, examined 80,000 square meters, transmitted many photographs and panoramas, and so on. As a result, the radioisotope heat source exhausted its resource and the lunar rover “froze.”

"Lunokhod-2"

The successes of Lunokhod-1 inspired the implementation of the new space program Lunokhod-2. The new project was almost no different in appearance from its predecessor, but was improved, and on January 15, 1973, the Luna-21 spacecraft delivered it to Selena. Unfortunately, the lunar rover lasted only 4 earthly months, but during this time it managed to travel 42 km and conduct hundreds of measurements and experiments.
Let's give the floor to the driver of the crew, Vyacheslav Georgievich Dovgan: “The story with the second one turned out to be stupid. He had already been on the Earth's satellite for four months. On May 9 I took the helm. We landed in a crater, the navigation system failed. How to get out? We have found ourselves in similar situations more than once. Then they simply covered the solar panels and got out. And then they ordered us not to close it and to get out. They say, we close it, and there will be no pumping of heat from the lunar rover, the instruments will overheat. We tried to drive out and hit the lunar soil. And the lunar dust is so sticky... The Lunokhod stopped receiving solar energy recharging in the required amount and gradually lost power. On May 11, there was no longer a signal from the lunar rover.”

"Lunokhod-3"

Unfortunately, after the triumph of Lunokhod-2 and another expedition, Luna-24, the Moon was forgotten for a long time. The problem was that her research, unfortunately, was dominated not by scientific, but by political aspirations. But preparations for the launch of the new unique self-propelled vehicle “Lunokhod-3” had already been completed, and the crews who had gained invaluable experience in previous expeditions were preparing to pilot it among the lunar craters. This machine, which absorbed all the best qualities of its predecessors, had on board the most advanced technical equipment and the latest scientific instruments in those years. What was the cost of a rotating stereo camera, the likes of which are now fashionable to be called 3D. Now “Lunokhod-3” is just an exhibit of the museum of the NPO named after S.A. Lavochkina. Unfair fate!

In January 1973, the Soviet space platform Luna-21 launched, which delivered Lunokhod-2 to the surface of the Earth's satellite. The device, weighing 836 kilograms, traveled more than 40 kilometers on the Moon. How preparations for the flight and the expedition itself took place was told by the head of the development of television systems for Soviet lunar rovers, an employee of (RKS), Professor Arnold Selivanov.

"Lenta.ru": Arnold Sergeevich, how was the decision made to create a mobile automatic station for lunar exploration?

Selivanov: This is a government decision, the implementation of which requires a lot of money and considerable time. Such large projects are formed at a very high level, much higher than the head of the space equipment development department, where I worked at that time.

To make a lunar rover, it was necessary to separately develop the chassis - the chassis, the remote control system, the design of the landing platform - and solve many other unique problems. I cannot say exactly when these problems began to be solved, but it happened long before the launch of the first lunar rover, during my lifetime.

Was this his project?

I think we can say that it was Korolev who determined the ideology and began the selection of performers for individual parts of the apparatus. But others have already implemented it. Korolev’s work was continued by chief designer Georgy Babakin.

In our organization, work was carried out under the general leadership of the chief designer Mikhail Ryazansky and the director.

We made the “eyes” of the device - television systems for controlling movement and taking panoramas of the Moon, as well as radio systems for transmitting images, telemetry and control commands. In addition, we created a ground-based space communications complex and provided trajectory measurements during the flight and landing of the Luna-21 station.

Ballistics experts were able to point the station very accurately: the distance between the intended and actual landing points was only 300 meters - high accuracy for that time. This was the result of the work of specialized radio equipment and measurement techniques created at our institute.

How was the work?

It was emergency work, but in space projects it simply doesn’t happen any other way. We are always doing something new, and we need to launch this new thing within very tight deadlines, which are often dictated to us by celestial mechanics. This disciplines the team very well.

In addition, we were young, could withstand high loads and felt involved in a very important matter - space exploration.

You said that you made the “eyes” of the lunar rover. What could they see?

The lunar rovers had two television systems at once. One was intended for operational control of the apparatus. Its cameras were oriented in the direction of movement. The second provided panning in two planes: in the horizontal plane of the lunar rover - for high-precision 360-degree topographic surveys, and in the vertical plane, one camera was installed on the left and right sides - to solve navigation problems. By the way, the quality of panoramic images is quite consistent with the modern level.

The television system played a key role in controlling the movement of the device. How difficult was it to establish high-quality interaction at the human-machine level?

Lunokhod is a robot, similar to modern radio-controlled toys that can be bought in a children's store. The fundamental difference is that it is located on another celestial body at a distance of almost 400 thousand kilometers from Earth.

A radio signal travels this distance in a little over a second. As a result, the total delay in the lunar rover's motion control loop is significantly more than three seconds: about one second is spent on the arrival of a command from the Earth, another about a second on confirmation of the execution of the command by the lunar rover, and more than a second on the actual execution of the command by the lunar rover, the reaction of the driver and actuators .

This can be compared to braking a car on a slippery road. You press the brake, and the car continues to move forward for some time.

At lunar distance it is very difficult to create a high-speed radio channel capable of transmitting moving images, like broadcast television. Instead of a dynamic television picture, the driver of the lunar rover observed only slides depicting the surface of the Moon, changing at a frequency ranging from one slide every three seconds to one slide every twenty seconds.

How does this happen in practice?

Let's say you need to move a distance of ten meters forward, you send a command and wait for it to be executed, and only after a few seconds you see an image of a new section of the surface. This makes it very easy to get into an emergency. The driver must constantly anticipate the development of events. This non-trivial task required special skills from drivers. They were tested on Earth at special “lunodromes”.

Did they reproduce lunar conditions?

There were two main lunardromes. At the stage of developing technical solutions, a mock-up of the lunar rover was tested, which moved in a hangar. It was suspended on special rubber ropes to simulate the lunar gravity, which is six times less than on Earth. In such a “weightless” state, the grip of the wheels became less, and then it was possible to understand how it would actually move on the Moon. This is how the behavior of the chassis was simulated, first without television - we participated at this stage as observers.

Then, when the lunar rover had already been created, a small “lunodrome” was built in Simferopol, near the ground control center, literally in the yard. Everything is like today in a computer game: screens, joysticks. The delay in signal transmission was simulated. There, the lunar rover was controlled not by radio, but by wires. He was driving, and a wire with a control panel was moving behind him. At this stage, our cameras were already used.

Both I and the employees of my department participated in training and controlled the lunar rover on Earth. It was important to play the role of drivers ourselves in order to understand how the television control system works in these conditions.

How did the equipment you made for Lunokhod 2 differ from Lunokhod 1?

On the first device, two television cameras were mounted very low, so they saw only a small area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe surface in front of them. At first, everyone believed that it was very important to see what was directly in front of the lunar rover in order to examine smaller objects and not miss any obstacles. Moreover, images of more distant objects were provided by four panoramic cameras - although they did not work all the time. It was necessary to stop often to look around, which noticeably reduced the speed of the first lunar rover.

These circumstances were taken into account on the second lunar rover: an additional camera was installed at the height of human growth. It turned out to be the most effective in real work. As a result, the image quality was much higher, the vehicle's speed and controllability increased significantly, and it covered a significantly greater distance in less time.

How was the driver chosen?

The Lunokhod was operated by more than one person. There were two crews. In addition to motion control, there was another control loop. Since you cannot install a very powerful transmitter on Lunokhod-2, you had to make an antenna directed towards the Earth with a narrow beam. The antenna was also on the drive. In some cases, when driving over uneven terrain, the direction of the antenna shifted significantly, and it was necessary to return it back to the desired sector. There was even such a position - a directional antenna operator, and there was a special second joystick to control it.
Thus, the crew consisted of five people: driver, commander, navigator, highly directional antenna operator and flight engineer. All of them were specially selected for this purpose, they were psychologically prepared for management.

What was the psychological part of the preparation?

For example, one thought was constantly conveyed to them: “Dear comrades, keep in mind that you have been entrusted with an invaluable spacecraft, and therefore treat it very carefully, and at the slightest suspicion that an emergency situation will arise, turn it off.”

Between you and me, we went a little too far, and this led to stress. The drivers were in a tense state, and after a certain time they had to be changed.

This was known in advance, so the management team had its own psychologists and doctors. Drivers had their blood pressure taken and their condition monitored. They were treated almost like astronauts.

Did you select people with perfect health?

Cosmonauts are selected based on their physical characteristics, but here the flexibility of the nervous system was more important. It was necessary to be able to perceive this work. They selected young officers - people who had never driven any type of transport before. This is a very unusual method of control, so we proceeded from the idea that previously acquired skills and habitual automatisms would not emerge. In the end, very good crews were created that did their job very well.

Do you remember your feelings when your development started working on the Moon? How it was?

It's an amazing feeling, but it goes away quickly. In general, delight and enthusiasm were universal. When the lunar rover started working on the Moon, many people appeared who wanted to see how it all happened. Can you imagine how interesting this is? They say that the minister asked to be given the opportunity to “steer,” and he was given such an opportunity. There were a huge number of lower-ranking bosses who wanted to feel involved in controlling the lunar rover.

Could this have harmed the mission?

The participation of outsiders in control was short-term and rather symbolic: they were allowed to send one or two commands under the supervision of the crew, nothing more.

After the journey of the first lunar rover, it became clear that it was not possible to completely imitate lunar conditions on Earth. Lunar soil - regolith - has very specific light-optical characteristics. At a certain angle, it reflects light well towards the light source. If the Sun shines directly from behind and at a small angle, then a bright spot is obtained in the near zone - greater illumination and no shadows are visible.

You can make a mistake, and this puts the driver in a tense state, he reduces the speed. In order for shadows to appear and the relief to be seen better, I had to turn it a little. Appropriate recommendations were given to those who plotted the route before each driving session, which lasted several hours. All accumulated experience was used to modernize Lunokhod-3. Unfortunately, it remained in history as a museum exhibit.

Why is there no video from the Moon?

We thought about it. From a technical point of view, it was difficult then, although it was possible, but today in general there are no problems. For example, the journey of Lunokhod 2 is reflected in more than 80 thousand frames and 86 panoramas. They can be used to make a beautiful documentary about a journey on the surface of the Moon. But at that time such a task was not considered a priority...

Now these shots are in the Space Information Archive and are waiting for their director - if only there was the desire and the means.

Do you remember how Lunokhod 2 ended its journey?

At the end of its journey, Lunokhod 2 found itself in a difficult “traffic situation”. He had to cross an old, badly damaged crater, which was common and had happened many times before during his journey. But one peculiarity emerged: an unusually large amount of regolith had accumulated at the bottom of this crater over many years. The wheels began to sink into the regolith, and Lunokhod 2 began to skid. The situation is well known to ordinary drivers when a car gets stuck in sandy soil. We decided to get out in reverse.

November 17 marks 40 years since the first lunar self-propelled vehicle, Lunokhod-1, was delivered to the Moon.

On November 17, 1970, the Soviet automatic station "Luna-17" delivered to the surface of the Moon the self-propelled vehicle "Lunokhod-1", intended for comprehensive studies of the lunar surface.

The creation and launch of a lunar self-propelled vehicle became an important stage in the study of the Moon. The idea of ​​creating a lunar rover was born in 1965 at OKB-1 (now RSC Energia named after S.P. Korolev). Within the framework of the Soviet lunar expedition, the Lunokhod was given an important place. Two lunar rovers were supposed to examine in detail the proposed lunar landing areas and act as radio beacons during the landing of the lunar ship. It was planned to use the lunar rover to transport the astronaut on the lunar surface.

The creation of the lunar rover was entrusted to the Machine-Building Plant named after. S.A. Lavochkin (now NPO named after S.A. Lavochkin) and VNII-100 (now OJSC VNIITransmash).

In accordance with the approved cooperation, the Machine-Building Plant named after S.A. Lavochkin was responsible for the creation of the entire space complex, including the creation of the lunar rover, and VNII-100 was responsible for the creation of a self-propelled chassis with an automatic motion control unit and a traffic safety system.

The preliminary design of the lunar rover was approved in the fall of 1966. By the end of 1967, all design documentation was ready.

The designed automatic self-propelled vehicle "Lunokhod-1" was a hybrid of a spacecraft and an all-terrain vehicle. It consisted of two main parts: an eight-wheeled chassis and a sealed instrument container.

Each of the 8 wheels of the chassis was driven and had an electric motor located in the wheel hub. In addition to the service systems, the instrument container of the lunar rover contained scientific equipment: a device for analyzing the chemical composition of lunar soil, a device for studying the mechanical properties of soil, radiometric equipment, an X-ray telescope and a French-made laser corner reflector for point-by-point distance measurement. The container had the shape of a truncated cone, and the upper base of the cone, which served as a radiator-cooler for heat release, had a larger diameter than the lower one. During the moonlit night, the radiator was closed with a lid.

The inner surface of the cover was covered with solar cells, which ensured recharging of the battery during the lunar day. In the operating position, the solar panel could be located at different angles within 0-180 degrees in order to optimally use the energy of the Sun at its different heights above the lunar horizon.

The solar battery and chemical batteries working in conjunction with it were used to supply electricity to numerous units and scientific instruments of the lunar rover.

In the front part of the instrument compartment there were windows of television cameras designed to control the movement of the lunar rover and transmit to Earth panoramas of the lunar surface and part of the starry sky, the Sun and the Earth.

The total mass of the lunar rover was 756 kg, its length with the solar battery cover open was 4.42 m, width 2.15 m, height 1.92 m. It was designed for 3 months of operation on the surface of the Moon.

On November 10, 1970, a three-stage Proton-K launch vehicle launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, which launched the Luna-17 automatic station with the Lunokhod-1 automatic self-propelled vehicle into an intermediate circular near-Earth orbit.

Having completed an incomplete orbit around the Earth, the upper stage put the station on a flight path to the Moon. On November 12 and 14, planned corrections to the flight trajectory were carried out. On November 15, the station entered lunar orbit. On November 16, flight path corrections were made again. On November 17, 1970, at 6 hours 46 minutes 50 seconds (Moscow time), the Luna-17 station safely landed in the Sea of ​​Rains on the Moon. It took two and a half hours to inspect the landing site using telephotometers and deploy the ramps. After analyzing the surrounding situation, a command was issued, and on November 17 at 9:28 a.m., the Lunokhod-1 self-propelled vehicle slid onto the lunar soil.

The Lunokhod was controlled remotely from Earth from the Center for Deep Space Communications. A special crew was prepared to control it, which included a commander, driver, navigator, operator and flight engineer. For the crew, military personnel were selected who had no experience in driving vehicles, including mopeds, so that earthly experience would not dominate when working with the lunar rover.

The selected officers underwent a medical examination almost the same as cosmonauts, theoretical training and practical training at a special lunodrome in Crimea, which was identical to the lunar terrain with depressions, craters, faults, and a scattering of stones of various sizes.

The Lunokhod crew, receiving lunar television images and telemetric information on Earth, used a specialized control panel to issue commands to the Lunokhod.

Remote control of the Lunokhod's movement had specific features due to the operator's lack of perception of the movement process, delays in the reception and transmission of television image commands and telemetric information, and the dependence of the mobility characteristics of the self-propelled chassis on movement conditions (relief and soil properties). This obliged the crew to anticipate with some advance the possible direction of movement and obstacles in the path of the lunar rover.

Throughout the first lunar day, the crew of the lunar rover adjusted to the unusual television images: the picture from the Moon was very contrasting, without penumbra.

The device was controlled in turns, the crews changed every two hours. Initially, longer sessions were planned, but practice showed that after two hours of work the crew was completely “exhausted.”

During the first lunar day, the landing area of ​​the Luna-17 station was studied. At the same time, the Lunokhod systems were tested and the crew gained driving experience.

For the first three months, in addition to studying the lunar surface, Lunokhod-1 also carried out an application program: in preparation for the upcoming manned flight, it practiced searching for the landing area for the lunar cabin.

On February 20, 1971, at the end of the 4th lunar day, the initial three-month work program of the lunar rover was completed. An analysis of the state and operation of on-board systems showed the possibility of continuing the active functioning of the automatic apparatus on the lunar surface. For this purpose, an additional program for the operation of the lunar rover was drawn up.

The successful operation of the spacecraft lasted 10.5 months. During this time, Lunokhod-1 traveled 10,540 m, transmitted 200 telephotometric panoramas and about 20 thousand low-frame television images to Earth. During the survey, stereoscopic images of the most interesting features of the relief were obtained, allowing for a detailed study of their structure.

Lunokhod-1 regularly carried out measurements of the physical and mechanical properties of the lunar soil, as well as chemical analysis of the surface layer of the lunar soil. He measured the magnetic field of various parts of the lunar surface.

Laser ranging from the Earth of the French reflector installed on the lunar rover made it possible to measure the distance from the Earth to the Moon with an accuracy of 3 m.

On September 15, 1971, at the onset of the eleventh lunar night, the temperature inside the sealed container of the lunar rover began to drop, as the resource of the isotope heat source in the night heating system was exhausted. On September 30, the 12th lunar day arrived at the lunar rover’s site, but the device never made contact. All attempts to contact him were stopped on October 4, 1971.

The total time of active operation of the lunar rover (301 days 6 hours 57 minutes) was more than 3 times greater than that specified in the technical specifications.

Lunokhod 1 remained on the Moon. Its exact location was unknown to scientists for a long time. Almost 40 years later, a team of physicists led by Professor Tom Murphy from the University of California, San Diego, found Lunokhod 1 in images taken by the American Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and used it for a scientific experiment to find inconsistencies in the General Theory of Relativity developed by Albert Einstein. For this study, scientists needed to measure the Moon's orbit to the nearest millimeter, which is done using laser beams.

On April 22, 2010, American scientists were able to “grope” the corner reflector of the Soviet apparatus using a laser beam sent through the 3.5-meter telescope at the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico (USA) and receive about 2 thousand photons reflected “ Lunokhod-1".

The material was prepared based on information from open sources

"Lunokhod-1" was considered missing for 40 years. A device that went missing 40 years ago was not only seen, but also received a signal from it.

Lunokhod 1 was considered missing for 40 years

Vladimir LAGOVSKY

Lunokhod 1, whose fate was unknown for almost 40 years, was found by researchers from the University of California, San Diego, led by physics professor Tom Murphy. And thus put an end to various mystical speculations. After all, they even said that someone had stolen the Soviet apparatus. Most likely aliens who have bases on the Moon.

Let me remind you that our eight-wheeled self-propelled robot was delivered to the Moon on November 17, 1970 by the Soviet automatic station “Luna-17”, which landed in the region of the Sea of ​​Rains (38 degrees 24 minutes north latitude, 34 degrees 47 minutes west longitude). I worked there for 301 days, 6 hours and 37 minutes, traveling a total of more than 10 kilometers. And disappeared. Like falling through the moon.

Long years in obscurity

Lunokhod 1 had a so-called corner reflector. In a simplified form, it’s like an open box with three mirrors mounted perpendicular to each other. Its peculiarity: any ray that hits the mirrors is reflected exactly at the point from which it was released.

Laser beams are sent to the moon from an observatory in New Mexico

Laser beams were fired from the Earth to determine the distance to the Moon, which, as it turned out, was gradually moving away - by about 38 millimeters per year. They sent it to Lunokhod 1 and caught reflected photons. And they measured the time spent on the light traveling back and forth. And knowing its speed, they calculated the distance.

A French corner reflector was installed on our self-propelled vehicle. This explains that the first experiments with its help were carried out in 1971 in the USSR and France. That is, there is no doubt that Lunokhod-1 was really on the Moon. However, suddenly it stopped reflecting laser beams. As if he quickly got away from the place he had just been in. Or he fell through somewhere... In a word, he disappeared. At least that's what it seemed like from Earth.

They search but can't find

Lunokhod 1 stopped blinking in response on September 14, 1971. And since then they have been persistently looking for him. For some reason the Americans are looking. But they don't find it. The last attempt was made by NASA 3 years ago. Scientists sent a laser pulse to the intended location of the device - in the region of the Sea of ​​​​Rays.

Nobody ever answered. Although, you don’t need to take special aim: the thinnest beam, reaching the Moon, expands. The area of ​​its spot on the surface reaches 25 square kilometers. It's hard to miss...

The researchers tried, but didn’t give up. And then there was a chance to come from the other side. Namely, first look for the device visually. They began to study the images transmitted by the automatic probe Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) - it is now in orbit of the Moon. And on those that were taken from a height of 50 kilometers, it was still possible to make out the Soviet station “Luna-17”.

First, the Americans found the Soviet automatic station Luna-17, which delivered Lunokhod 1

Luna 17 large. Traces from the wheels of Lunokhod 1 are visible around it.

The landing module of Luna 17: it is visible in the previous image.

“We even saw the tracks from the wheels of Lunokhod 1 and the rut rolled around the station,” says Tom Murphy.

The Californians looked where the track ultimately led. And in other photographs they found a “pea” of the first lunar self-propelled vehicle. A beam was sent to him on April 22 of this year. Directed using a powerful telescope with a laser installed at the observatory (Apache Point Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico). And the answer was received.

"Lunokhod-1" moved several kilometers away from its intended location

This is what Lunokhod 1 looked like: it was about 2 meters long

“The device was located several kilometers from the place where they were looking for it before,” says Russet McMillan from the observatory. — In a couple of months we will report the coordinates accurate to the centimeter.

He was returned

The answer that came instantly from the Moon, of course, made me happy. But I was also puzzled. It was so clear, as if someone had cleaned the reflector. Moreover, it definitely turned towards the Earth.

“Corner reflectors are installed on several more lunar probes, but the response signal from Lunokhod 1 is several times brighter than others,” Tom Murphy marvels. “In the best cases, we received 750 photons back to Earth. And here - more than 2000 on the first try. It is very strange.

The researcher is also surprised because he himself discovered: the efficiency of the reflectors operating on the Moon has decreased by about 10 times. That is, those that were left on Lunokhod-2 and installed by astronauts of the Apollo 11, -14 and -15 missions were badly damaged. Perhaps they got dusty. Or got scratched. And the device on Lunokhod-1, one of the oldest, reflects like new. It’s as if 40 years have not passed. Mystery…

Let us recall that the LRO probe transmitted to Earth images of all the places where American astronauts landed. The abandoned equipment is visible there. Although not so clear as to completely eliminate doubts.

AND AT THIS TIME
Our equipment is on site

Recently, Canadian researcher Phil Stooke from the University of Western Ontario spotted our Lunokhod 2 in images transmitted from lunar orbit. It was easier for the Canadian - the twin brother of Lunokhod-1 did not disappear anywhere, he stood in the Sea of ​​​​Clarity. And its reflectors reflected.

"Lunokhod-2" and its traces

Lunokhod 2 arrived with the Luna 21 station in 1973. She landed about 150 kilometers from the American Apollo 17.

And according to one of the legends, the device went to the site where the Americans operated in 1972 and drove their self-propelled carriage.

It seems that Lunokhod 2, equipped with a camera, was supposed to film the equipment left behind by the astronauts. And confirm that they were really there. It seems that the USSR still had doubts, although they never officially admitted it.

Our self-propelled vehicle traveled 37 kilometers - this is a record for movement on other celestial bodies. He really could have made it to Apollo 17, but he caught loose soil from the edge of the crater, overheated and broke.

Historical hit

Scientists hit Lunokhod 1 with a laser beam

American scientists hit the Soviet lunar rover with a laser beam - this news appeared in the media writing about science at the end of April. Lunokhod 1 stood motionless on the Moon for almost 40 years, and therefore the high intensity of the response beam caught by the researchers was all the more surprising. Now experts intend to use the “awakened” lunar rover to conduct various scientific experiments and even test the theory of relativity with its help.

Background

Before telling how a machine created in 1970 with a notorious radioactive isotope of polonium inside is connected with Albert Einstein, let us briefly recall what events preceded the appearance of the news described.

The remotely controlled self-propelled vehicle-planetary rover "Lunokhod-1" was developed at the Lavochkin NPO as part of the Soviet space program. After the success of Sputnik and Gagarin’s famous Let’s Go! The USSR was seriously preparing for the next step - the exploration of the Moon. In Crimea, near Simferopol, a training ground was created where future inhabitants of the lunar base trained to control special devices for moving on lunar soil, and test engineers learned to control the movements of “unmanned” lunar rovers - vehicles of the Lunokhod-1 class.

A total of four such machines were built. One of them was supposed to become the first earthly object to reach the surface of the satellite. On February 19, 1969, the Proton series launch vehicle, which carried Lunokhod-1, launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. However, at the 52nd second of flight, the rocket exploded due to an emergency shutdown of the first stage engines. It was impossible to organize a new start right away, and as a result, the Americans, who worked no less hard on the manned flight program, were the first to succeed. The launch of the Apollo 11 spacecraft, carrying Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, took place on July 16 of the same year.

Soviet engineers made the second attempt to launch Lunokhod 1 on November 10, 1970. This time the flight went smoothly: on the 15th, the automatic interplanetary station “Luna-17” entered the orbit of the earth’s satellite, and on the 17th it landed in the Sea of ​​Rains, a giant crater filled with dried lava. "Lunokhod-1" slid down to the surface of the Moon and set off.

The scientific program of the lunar rover was very extensive - the device was supposed to study the physical and mechanical properties of the lunar soil, photograph the surrounding landscape and its individual details, and transmit all the data to Earth. The loaf-like “body” of the lunar rover was located on a platform equipped with eight wheels. The device was more than all-wheel drive - operators could independently adjust the direction and speed of rotation of each of the wheels, changing the direction of movement of the rover in almost any way.

The arrow indicates the spot, which is Lunokhod 1. Photo NASA/GSFC/Arizona State U

True, it was very difficult to control the lunar rover - due to the almost five-second signal delay (from the Earth to the Moon and back the signal takes a little more than two seconds), the operators could not navigate the current situation and had to predict the location of the device. Despite these difficulties, Lunokhod 1 traveled over 10.5 kilometers, and its mission lasted three times longer than the researchers expected.

On September 14, 1971, scientists received a radio signal from the rover as usual, and soon after, as night fell on the moon, the temperature inside the rover began to drop. On September 30, the sun illuminated Lunokhod 1 again, but it did not contact the Earth. Experts believe that the equipment could not withstand the moonlit night with its frost of minus 150 degrees Celsius. The reason for the unexpected cooling of the lunar rover is simple: it has run out of the radioactive isotope polonium-210. It was the decay of this element that heated the rover's instruments while it was in the shadows. During the day, Lunokhod 1 was powered by solar panels.

Found

The exact location of the lunar rover was unknown to scientists - in the 70s, navigation technology was less developed than it is now, and besides, the lunar terrain itself largely remained terra incognita. And finding a device the size of which is comparable to the Oka at a distance of 384 thousand kilometers is a more difficult task than finding the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Hopes for discovering the lunar rover were associated with orbital lunar probes orbiting the earth's satellite. However, until recently, the resolution of their cameras was in no way sufficient to discern Lunokhod 1. Everything changed in 2009, when the Americans launched the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), equipped with an LROC camera specially designed for photographing objects up to several meters in size.

Specialists supervising the work of LROC noticed a suspicious light object in one of the images transmitted by the probe. The ruts running away from the object helped determine that the speck captured by the camera was the Luna-17 automatic station. Only Lunokhod 1 could have left them, and after tracing where the ruts led, scientists discovered the vehicle. More precisely, they discovered a spot, which with a high probability was nothing more than a frozen lunar rover.

Simultaneously with specialists from NASA (the LRO probe was created under the auspices of the American Space Agency), a team of physicists from the University of California at San Diego was searching for the lunar rover. As its director, Tom Murphy, later said, scientists spent several years trying to find the device in an area many kilometers away from the true stopping place of the lunar rover.

More recently, news appeared in the press that scientists, using the LRO probe, discovered a second Soviet Lunokhod-2 on the Moon. Shortly after these reports appeared, scientists involved in the development of the Soviet lunar program stated that they had never lost the vehicle. The information told by Murphy and his team about their experiments can serve as confirmation of the words of domestic specialists, and the data transmitted by LRO made it possible to see the second lunar rover with their own eyes.

The reader may wonder why Californian physicists hunted so hard for the Soviet machine. The answer is not entirely obvious - researchers need the lunar rover to test the theory of relativity. At the same time, specialists are not interested in the lunar rover as such. The only detail for which they had been looking for the device for years was the corner reflector installed on it - a device that reflects the radiation that hits it in the direction strictly opposite to the direction of incidence. Using corner reflectors installed on the Moon, scientists can determine the exact distance to it. To do this, they send a laser beam to the reflector and then wait for it to be reflected and return to Earth. Since the speed of the beam is constant and equal to the speed of light, by measuring the time from sending the beam to its return, researchers can find out the distance to the reflector.

Lunokhod-1 is not the only vehicle on the Moon equipped with a corner reflector. Another one was installed on the second Soviet planetary rover, Lunokhod 2, and three others were delivered to the satellite during the 11th, 14th and 15th Apollo missions. Murphy and his collaborators regularly used all of them in their research (although they used the lunar rover's reflector less often than others, since it did not work well when exposed to direct sunlight). But to conduct full-fledged experiments, scientists lacked the Lunokhod-1 reflector. As Murphy explained, it’s all about the location of the device, which is ideal for conducting experiments to study the characteristics of the liquid core of the Moon and determine its center of mass.

The devil is in the details

At this point the reader may become completely confused: how are the corner reflectors connected to the lunar core and what does the theory of relativity have to do with it? The connection is indeed not the most obvious. Let's start with the general theory of relativity (GR). She argues that, due to gravitational effects and the curvature of space-time, the Moon will orbit the Earth in a different orbit than that postulated by Newtonian mechanics. General Relativity predicts the lunar orbit to within centimeters, so in order to verify it, it is necessary to measure the orbit with equal accuracy.

Corner reflectors are an excellent tool for determining orbit - with many measured distances from the Earth to the Moon, scientists can very accurately deduce the trajectory of a satellite's rotation. The liquid “insides” of the Moon influence the nature of the satellite’s movement (try rotating boiled and raw chicken eggs on the table, and you will immediately see how this influence manifests itself), and therefore, to obtain an accurate picture, it is necessary to find out exactly how the Moon deviates due to the characteristics of its kernels.

So, the fifth reflector was vital for Murphy and his colleagues. After scientists located the Lunokhod 1 site, they fired a laser beam about one hundred meters in diameter into the area using a facility at the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico. The researchers were lucky - they “hit” the lunar rover’s reflector on the second attempt and thus narrowed the search range to 10 meters. To the surprise of Murphy and his team, the signal coming from Lunokhod 1 was very intense - more than 2.5 times stronger than the best signals from the second rover. In addition, scientists were lucky in principle that they were able to wait for the reflected beam - after all, the reflector could well have been turned away from the Earth. In the near future, researchers intend to clarify the location of the device and begin full-fledged experiments to test the validity of Einstein’s statements.

Thus, the story of Lunokhod-1, interrupted 40 years ago, received an unexpected continuation. It is possible that some of the readers will be indignant (and judging by the reaction to the news on the Internet, they have already begun to be indignant) why American scientists are using our lunar rover and what a pity that Russian specialists were left out of work in this experiment. In order to somehow reduce the degree of future discussions, I would like to note that science is an international matter, and therefore arguing about the national priorities of scientific work is, at best, a useless exercise.

Irina Yakutenko

If we assume that we have no brothers in mind, this transport can be considered the most reliable in the entire Universe. The Americans don't count: they repaired their Lunar Rover twice right on the Moon. Our “Lunokhod”, if it had broken down during the “flight”, there would have been no one to repair it - the crew was 400 thousand kilometers away from it...

Drone chassis

In the exploration of other planets, we, as has happened more than once, also went our own way. Instead of a human, the USSR decided to send a robotic explorer to a neighboring planet.

In order for him to be able to do everything that a living astronaut could do, he needed a vehicle. The key problem was the chassis, and the military research institute from Leningrad, which designed the chassis, was assigned to solve it. Military designers settled on the good old wheel, rejecting the caterpillar track, walking, jumping, rolling... There were several defining requirements for the Lunokhod chassis.

First of all, the propulsion device must be so universal that it minimizes the likelihood of “landing” the rover - there will be no one to push it! And, as life will show, space robots have problems with “swinging.” In addition, the tread profile was supposed to prevent the vehicle from sliding sideways when driving on slopes. Secondly, reliability is important, and what could be simpler than a wheel? Here, by the way, thirdly, due to its simplicity, the wheel as such is an extremely light unit. Finally, it is one of the most efficient propulsion systems and requires the least energy consumption. The use of a chassis with wheels makes it possible to vary their number, and in addition to reducing pressure on the ground, it is also an opportunity to increase the survivability of the vehicle - by eliminating failed wheels from the game.

The wheel is reinvented

True, the wheel had to be significantly modified, primarily because at the end of the 1960s people knew very roughly what lunar soil was. The combination of stones of all calibers with loose rocks of unpredictable density required a wheel with contradictory properties. And the military did this. Three thin titanium rims rolled easily on a hard surface, the mesh stretched between them came into action on loose soil when the rims began to fail. Angle lugs welded on top of everything helped to rake on a loose surface under load. As it turned out later, they were in demand more often than we would like. Light spokes instead of discs provided the necessary strength and elasticity in case of hard contact of the wheel with stones.

The final version of the wheels was born as a result of calculations and numerous tests. The prototypes were rolled at three training grounds with different types of soil and even in the compartment of an airplane simulating lunar gravity, which is 1/6 of Earth’s. For example, it took a lot of time to select the size of the mesh cell stretched over the rim.

A DC electric motor with a gearbox and a squib was built into the thin wheel hub. The latter was undermined remotely in the event of an emergency jamming of the drive, and the wheel, thus disconnected from the gearbox axis, turned from a driver into a driven one, that is, it simply rolled along the surface. In this way, it was possible to “repair” the drive of five wheels out of eight available without direct human intervention, and the device could continue performing the task with the three remaining drive wheels!

Nerves 400 thousand km long

The most difficult point in the USSR lunar project was the control of the Lunokhod. It was remote, and it was difficult to find a more remote one: the distance from the Sea of ​​Rains on the Moon, where our space robot landed, to the Center for Deep Space Communications in Crimea, where its crew was located, exceeded 400,000 kilometers.

The command radio signal covered this path in 2.5 seconds, that is, with such a delay the device responded to the driver’s commands. But that wasn't the main problem. The main difficulty was the speed of updating the image on the monitor in front of the operator. The transmission of images from the Lunokhod cameras to Earth was only called television; in fact, the driver saw in front of him, to put it mildly, a slide show: the frame changed not 25 times per second, but once every 3–20 seconds (depending on the terrain )! There is nothing to be done - communication channels and computing machines of that time could not provide faster data transfer. Thus, after detecting an obstacle, the car continued to move for at least 8 seconds! That is why drivers never drove faster than 2 km/h.

The problem was aggravated by the peculiarities of lunar lighting - so sharp and contrasting that the traffic situation “behind the windshield” looked to the operator as a set of black and white spots. On some days, when the sun was at its zenith, it was impossible to “travel” at all. Therefore, to help the driver’s eyes, the device sent him data from additional sensors: roll, trim, load and wheel slip. Analyzing them, the crew quickly understood what was happening to their car: it tilted over a rocky ridge, descended into a crater, climbed out of it with 90 percent slipping... The crew’s work was so intense that he couldn’t stand it for more than two hours “behind the wheel.” .

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What is inside?

By the way, about the crew. It consisted of five people. In addition to the driver, who sat on the levers (he turned the Lunokhod like a tank, with the wheels braking), there were also a navigator, a flight engineer, a highly directional antenna operator, and a crew commander. Be that as it may, even under other favorable conditions, all these people could not fit in their car, since its rounded body (max. diameter 2,150 mm) is completely occupied by scientific equipment and systems responsible for the operation of the chassis. The rover's propulsion motors were powered by silver-cadmium batteries, which were charged by solar panels placed on the top hinged cover. At night (one lunar night, like a lunar day, lasts almost 14 Earth days), the lid was closed to conserve heat in the body, and the device froze during this time in “anabiosis.” The reason is not the lack of powerful headlights, but the lack of ability to recharge batteries without the sun.

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One of the key systems of the Lunokhod was the climate control system, which provided the desired temperature in a sealed housing at an outside temperature of –150 °C at night and +150 °C during the day. The heat source was a capsule containing the radioisotope Polonium-210, and excess heat was removed through the roof of the housing, which was a radiator. The coolant gas circulated inside the housing through two circuits, the second being allocated for equipment with a particularly strict thermal regime. The efficiency of the climate control of that time was so high that it made it possible not to worry about the safety of the equipment when the temperature difference between the left and right sides of the device was 100 degrees!

Warranty

A total of four copies of the Lunokhod were produced, not counting the experimental versions and training copies. The very first “combat” prototype, which was later given the name “Lunokhod-0,” did not make it into space due to a rocket accident at launch. The second vehicle, named Lunokhod-1, traveled 10,540 meters on the Moon, completing many scientific tasks. The manufacturer - the defense enterprise Machine-Building Plant named after S. A. Lavochkin - guaranteed three months of uninterrupted operation of its brainchild, but Lunokhod-1 worked for almost a year, from November 17, 1970 to September 15, 1971. Operation had to be stopped after that. how the isotope heat source exhausted its resource and the “filling” of the eight-wheeled robot finally froze on a cold lunar 150-degree night...