Lunakhod Rovers

[ENortonII]

Has anyone seen the Lunakhod rovers/landers/tracks?

[kmasterdo]

I'm not sure if those images are already in the database. I thought there had been some focus on the Apollo landing sites...

[ENortonII]

I have gotten a few images from some of the Apollo sites. The Lunakhod hardware and tracks would be visible. The Surveyor landers might be visible too. The craters formed by the Ranger missions would look new if they are big enough and probably a different albedo.

[ngc3314]

Stepping to data that may be outside of the Moon Mappers set, there is a thread on unmannedspaceflight.com discussing and linking to LRO images of robotic landing sites including both Lunakhods. Lunakhod 1's retroreflector now gives responses; IIRC the earlier position estimate was just far enough off not to have been given returns.

[IreneAnt]

Hi Folks,

Sorry to take so long getting back. We had a long weekend here and I was off with the family.

MoonMappers has so far shown images from Apollo 15 and the central South Pole-Aitken basin on the far side of the Moon. We may have gotten into some Apollo 14 and 12 images, but you'd have to confirm that with AstroStu.

None of the Lunokhod rovers (or any of the Luna landers) are located anywhere near these study areas (check out this map here to see for yourself). So, unfortunately people will not have seen soviet hardware in the MoonMappers images to date.

This could change. However, at CosmoQuest, we try to pick targets that are of scientific interest first and foremost. So, unless there is a compelling science reason to look at craters in the vicinity of any space hardware, it's not likely to happen. That said, people are more than welcome to try and make a scientifically compelling case for looking at a particular spot on the Moon. If it's good enough, who knows....

[astrostu]

I've also been pretty busy with some lunar-related stuff ... 130 hrs in 10 days to do a paper. Anyway, as Irene said, the Luna sites are not in the queue. Mare Crisium is an interesting spot (Luna 24) as one of the youngest mare but showing several episodes of volcanic flooding, and it might be something to do with wider-angle images at some point, but that's currently not in the pipeline.