Lunokhod 1, a 1970s era lunar probe sent to the moon by Soviet scientists has been found by NASA some 40 years after falling silent. The first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another celestial body, Lunokhod means moon walker in Russian, and the probe managed to send back photographs and soil sample data before contact was lost after just 322 Earth days of operations.
It first landed on the Sea of Rains, a relatively smooth surface formed by lava which flooded a giant crater created when a very large object hit the Moon long ago.
The NASA team sent pulses of laser light toward the newly found rover and found its retroreflector in excellent condition. This can give information about the moon’s core and gravity field, as well as lunar dust.
The Soviet Space Program continued for more than 60 years from the 1930s to when the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991, and was responsible for a lot of significant space achievements, as well as some failures and thwarted projects.
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