Dude, there's my car!

David Heath
Thursday, 18 March 2010 21:34

Science - Space

The long-lost Lunokhod-2 rover has been relocated using NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.  But there's far more to the story than that.

In 1973, Lunokhod-2 was sent to the Moon as a rather weak response to the American's Apollo missions.

Auspiciously, it managed to travel 37km across the surface during a period of 5 months before getting bogged in a crater.  No other man-made vehicle has travelled further on a foreign world.

It seems that the rover was being driven in real-time by remote control from an Earth station.  With the controllers relying on 'borrowed' Apollo orbiter photos.  Unfortunately, the detail wasn't quite good enough and they drove it into a crater.

Trying to get the rover out again, they coated the radiator in dust and the poor thing cooked itself.

The pity of course being that although Lunokhod-2 carried a laser-ranging reflector, scientists could determine the distance from earth very accurately, but not the location on the moon's surface with any certainty.

Fast forward a few years; the Soviet Union had broken up and Russia was a little short of cash.  In December 1993, they engaged Sotheby's to sell the rover (presumably on an "as-is-where-is" basis).

Who bought it?