November 17 marks the 55th anniversary of the delivery of Lunokhod-1 to the Moon. This triumph of Soviet science and engineering not only turned a new page in humanity’s exploration of space, but demonstrated to the world the USSR’s unwavering drive to conquer the cosmos and its remarkable ability to execute extraordinarily complex scientific and technical missions. The lunar rover became a symbol of an entire era—one in which the Soviet Union played the leading role.
In 1971, at the Paris Air Show in Le Bourget, the Soviet Union unveiled an entire lineup of impressive achievements. The main stars of the exhibition were the supersonic passenger aircraft Tu-144, a model of the launch complex for the Vostok rocket, and, of course, the legendary Lunokhod-1.
On this backdrop of scientific success, the Americans showcased the massive C-5A Galaxy military transport aircraft, capable of carrying tanks and helicopters. The Swedish SAAB-37 Viggen also drew considerable attention—a canard-design fighter capable of reaching Mach 2 (2,448 km/h, or 680 m/s). Yet the Soviet lunar rover held its own: it looked impressive both among foreign innovations and next to the domestic Tu-144. Foreign visitors to the show called it “the new cosmic wonder of the Russians.”
The first Soviet lunar rover had a remarkably intriguing backstory. Although its mission on the Moon undoubtedly deserves special attention, the earthly history of Lunokhod holds many mysteries and unusual facts.
In the 1960s, the United States and the USSR embarked on a “space race.” The supreme task and ultimate goal of the decade for both superpowers was to send humans to the Moon.
This feat would allow each side to display to the world the technological mastery of its engineers—the true elite of both rival nations. For the Soviet Union, this ambition crystallized into an imperative: “to demonstrate the superiority of the socialist system.”
Nikita Khrushchev, irritated by what he saw as American arrogance, exclaimed behind the scenes in 1956:
“But this will not last long. A little time will pass, and we will speak as equals.”
The USSR placed its hopes on a crewed lunar landing using the Zond spacecraft. After a series of failed tests—including a fatal explosion at the launch site in 1968—the Soviet Union shifted its focus to other lunar programs.
These included robotic landings and remotely operated lunar rovers. The first designs for such machines began in the late 1950s. As often happens, hints—or even prophecies—came first from the world of art.
A New Chapter in Space Exploration
“On November 17, 1970, at 6:47 a.m. Moscow time, the automatic station Luna-17 made a soft landing on the surface of the Moon in the region of the Sea of Rains. Mounted on the station’s landing platform was the self-propelled lunar rover ‘Lunokhod-1'," Soviet news agency TASS reported.
The report emphasized that for the first time in the history of astronautics, a rover had been delivered to the Moon and had begun scientific research under remote control from Earth.
“To ensure the landing of the station in the designated region of the lunar surface, an orbital maneuver was performed on November 16. As a result, the station entered an elliptical orbit with a minimum altitude of 19 kilometers above the lunar surface,”
the report stated.
The mission lasted from November 17, 1970, to September 14, 1971. During that time, Lunokhod-1 traveled 10 kilometers and 540 meters, thoroughly examining an area of 80,000 square meters of lunar terrain.
Its maximum speed reached 2 kilometers per hour. Over the course of the mission, it transmitted 200 telephotometric panoramas and around 20,000 small-frame television images back to Earth. The rover also captured stereoscopic images of the Moon’s most striking geological features.
Thus, a dream—first hinted at modestly in the drama The Story Happened in Penkovo, and later more poetically in The Lunar Road—became reality. The Soviet citizen never traveled to the Moon, but he sent a rover there and guided it from Earth.
The Legacy Continued: Lunokhod-2
The success of Lunokhod-1 was reaffirmed by Lunokhod-2 in 1973, which ultimately traversed about 37 kilometers of lunar surface. Researchers note that the American Mars rover Opportunity required more than ten years to reach the same distance on Mars.
