On November 17, 1970, the Luna-17 automatic station delivered the world's first rover, Lunokhod-1, to the lunar surface. Soviet scientists successfully implemented this program and took another step not only in the race with the United States, but also in the study of the Universe.
Lunokhod-0
Oddly enough, but "Lunokhod-1" is not the first lunar rover launched from the surface of the Earth. The path to the moon was long and difficult. By trial and error, Soviet scientists paved the way into space. Indeed, it is always difficult for pioneers! Tsiolkovsky also dreamed of a "lunar carriage" that would move on the Moon by itself 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 required to enter orbit, was launched in order to send the interplanetary station into space. But during acceleration, the head fairing, which covered the lunar rover, began to collapse under the influence of friction and high temperatures - the debris fell into the fuel tank, which led to an explosion and the complete destruction of the unique rover. This project was named "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 machine, began in the early 1960s. The space race with the United States, which began in 1957, spurred Soviet scientists to daring work on complex projects. The most authoritative design bureau - Sergey Pavlovich Korolev's Design Bureau - took over the rover program. Then they did not yet know what the surface of the Moon is - is it solid or covered with a centuries-old layer of dust? That is, to begin with, it was necessary to design the method of movement itself, and only then go directly to the apparatus. After a long search, they decided to focus on a solid surface and make the chassis of the lunar vehicle tracked. This was done by VNII-100 (later VNII TransMash),specializing in the manufacture of undercarriage parts of tanks - the project was directed by Alexander Leonovich Kemurdzhian. The "Korolevsky" (as it was later called) lunar rover resembled in its appearance a shiny metal turtle on caterpillars - with a "shell" in the form of a hemisphere and straight metal fields at the bottom like the rings of Saturn. Looking at this lunar rover, it becomes a little pity that it was not destined to fulfill its mission.
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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 to the design bureau of the Khimki Machine-Building Plant named after S. A. Lavochkin. 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 enormous amount of work alone, so it was wise to divide the work. It should be noted that Babakin coped with the task brilliantly! In part, the fact that in 1966 the automatic interplanetary station Luna-9 made a soft landing on Selena played into his hands, and Soviet scientists finally got an accurate idea of the surface of the Earth's natural satellite. After that, we made adjustments to the project of the lunar rover, changed the chassis,and the whole appearance has undergone significant changes. Lunokhod Babakin met with rave reviews from all over the world - both among scientists and among ordinary people. This ingenious invention has hardly been ignored by any mass media in the world. It seems that even now - with a photograph from a Soviet magazine - the lunar rover stands in front of our eyes like a clever robot in the form of a large pan on wheels with many intricate antennas.
And yet, what is he?
The lunar rover is comparable in size 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 vehicle with all-terrain qualities. The lunar rover could move forward and backward at two speeds and make turns in place and in motion. The instrument compartment (in the "pan") housed the onboard systems equipment. The solar panel was folded back like a piano lid during the day and closed at night. It provided recharging of 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 Earth days. The lunar rover was intended to study the chemical composition and properties of the 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 (we will talk about it later) and other clever technology.
"Lunokhod-1", or a non-child radio-controlled toy
We will not go into details - this is a topic for a separate article - but somehow Lunokhod-1 ended up on Selena. An automatic station delivered him there, that is, there were no people there, and the lunar machine was to be controlled from Earth. Each crew consisted of five people: the commander, the driver, the flight engineer, the navigator and the operator of the directional antenna. The latter had to make sure that the antenna always "looked" at the Earth, providing radio communication with the Lunokhod. Between the Earth and the Moon, about 400,000 km, and the radio signal, with the help of which it was possible to correct the movement of the apparatus, covered this distance in 1.5 seconds, and the picture from the Moon was formed - depending on the landscape - from 3 to 20 seconds. So it turned out that while the picture was being formed, the lunar rover continued to move, and after the image appeared,the crew could find their vehicle already in the crater. Due to the great stress, the crews replaced each other every two hours.
Thus, Lunokhod-1, designed for 3 Earth months of operation, worked on the Moon for 301 days. During this time, he drove 10,540 meters, surveyed 80,000 square meters, transferred many pictures and panoramas, and so on. As a result, the radioisotope heat source has 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 almost did not differ in appearance from its predecessor, but was improved, and on January 15, 1973, the Luna-21 AMS delivered it to Selena. Unfortunately, the lunar rover lasted only 4 Earth months, but during this time it managed to cover 42 km and carry out 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. For four months he had already been on the Earth satellite. On May 9, I sat down at the helm. We hit a crater, the navigation system was out of order. How to get out? More than once we have already found ourselves in similar situations. Then they just closed the solar panels and got out. And then they ordered not to close it and get out like that. Like, we will close it, and there will be no heat pumping out from the lunar rover, the devices will overheat. We tried to drive out and hooked on the lunar soil. And the lunar dust is so sticky … The lunar rover stopped receiving recharging with solar energy in the required volume and gradually went out of power. On May 11 there was no longer any 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, unfortunately, her research was dominated not by scientific but by political aspirations. But preparations for the launch of the new unique self-propelled vehicle Lunokhod-3 were already being completed, and the crews who had gained invaluable experience in previous expeditions were preparing to lead it among the lunar craters. This machine, which incorporated all the best qualities of its predecessors, had on board the most advanced technical equipment of those years and the latest scientific instruments. What was the price of a rotary 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 SA Lavochkin. Unjust fate!