You Too Can Find Missing Russian Spacecraft

This image, taken by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's high-resolution camera, shows the final resting place of Lunokod 2, as well as the crater that caused its death. Credit: NASA / GSFC / Sergei Gerasimenko / Sasha Basilevsky, via the Planetary Society Blog

On Monday, NASA released the complete set of science data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera’s first six months of observations, consisting of more than 100,000 lunar images. Straight away, Phil Stooke from the University of Western Ontario began scanning the images to help find a “missing” Russian rover on the lunar surface, the Lunokhod 2. It didn’t take him long to discover the tracks left by the lunar sampler 37 years ago after it made a 35-kilometer trek. “The tracks were visible at once,” said Stooke.

UPDATE: It turns out the original image that showed what Dr. Stooke thought was the Lunokhod 2 rover’s location was not quite correct. Emily Lakdawalla posted a story about it on The Planetary Society Blog, and so I checked with Stooke. He replied: “After I posted my “discovery” Sasha Basilevsky, a veteran Russian planetary scientist, sent me and Emily an image – the one she put on her blog – which shows the true situation. My dark spot is a dark marking the rover made as it turned in place before heading out on one last short drive. That took it out beyond the edge of my image. That new image shows the rover as a bright spot. Yes, I concur with their interpretation. My spot was made by the rover but it’s not actually the rover itself.”

So, I have updated the image above to show the actual final resting spot. The black arrow shows the spot that Stooke originally thought was the rover, where the white arrow shows the real rover. The smaller white arrows point out the rover’s tracks. (end of update)

And now that the images are readily available for anyone to see, who knows what you can find on the Moon?

Out-driving even the long-lasting Mars Exploration Rovers, the Lunokhod 2 made the longest journey any robotic rover has ever been driven on another celestial body. As soon as the NASA photos were released, scientists around the world, including Stooke, began work to locate the rover. Stooke set up a searchable image database and located the photograph he needed, among thousands of others.

“Knowing the history of the mission,” said Stooke, “it’s possible to trace the rover’s activities in fine detail. We can see where it measured the magnetic field, driving back and forth over the same route to improve the data. And we can also see where it drove into a small crater, and accidentally covered its heat radiator with soil as it struggled to get out again. That ultimately caused it to overheat and stop working. And the rover itself shows up as a dark spot right where it stopped.”

Stooke is not just an average, ordinary guy scanning through images and maps of the Moon. In 2007, he published a major reference book on lunar exploration entitled, “The International Atlas of Lunar Exploration.”

His new find of the rover means that older maps published by Russia will now need to be revised, Stooke said.

Meanwhile, the teams from LRO found some other Russian spacecraft on the Moon’s surface.
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The Soviet Union successfully executed three robotic sample return missions as part of the Cold War competition with the United States. The first mission, Luna 16, returned a small sample (101 grams) from Mare Fecunditatis in September of 1970, a time between the US Apollo 12 and 14 manned landings. A year and half later, February 21, 1972, Luna 20 soft landed in the rugged highlands between Mare Fecunditatis and Mare Crisium. The next day a sample return capsule blasted off carrying 55 grams of lunar soil. The Luna 20 descent stage still sits silently on the Moon, clearly visible in this LROC image.

Below is the Luna 24, visible on the edge of a crater.

Luna 24 sitting on the edge of a 60 meter diameter crater. NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

Sources: NASA, University of Western Ontario, LRO

9 Replies to “You Too Can Find Missing Russian Spacecraft”

  1. Thanks for posting. Always enjoy reading about new discoveries on our nearby neighbor.

    Two suggestions – in these types of instances, please post a larger linked image similar to the main image of the blog. Attempting to see Luna 24 at the edge of a crater on the given image is rather futile.

    Also, why no link to the images NASA released?

  2. Many thanks for giving details of the Russian Sample Return Missions.

    News of them is very muted else where, including in the popular new texts written about the US/Russian race to land a man on the Moon.

    If sample return missions were possible in 1970 then surely we should be able to get samples from Mars in the 21st cent.

  3. Just great! Waited for this for a while. But… Lunokhod 1 would be even more interesting then Lunokhod 2. Thanks to still working laser reflector, Lunokhod 2 position was always known down to 1 meter. While position of Lunokhod 1 is known by several kilometers. There is no signal from it since 1970.

  4. The University of Western Ontario did the following report on a possible location for Lunokhod 1, the pdf is here
    http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2005/pdf/1194.pdf.

    Lander (Luna 17) location is suggested at 38.26N, 35.19W.
    Lunokhod 1 location is suggested at 38.29N, 35.19W.

    Maps are included in the pdf, as cydonia said above the exact locations are unknown.

    Nancy has the link location above for the images at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/image_release.html.

    Best of luck looking through these.

  5. 2stepbay – Did you see the links at the end or click on the images? All the images in this post link to the originals — just click on them; and in the “Sources” under NASA it links to the press release about the LRO images.

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