Talk:Lunokhod programme

Article locked
Does anyone have a problem with this being locked while it's on the /. front page? It was being edited to add goatsex links, mention slashdot trolling phenomena and generally make the project look horrible. Pakaran. 23:14, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Not a problem - given the history and temporary prominence I'd have protected it as well. Wonder which of our user pages will be the first one hit in a frustrated followup?:) Jamesday 23:30, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I thought it was quite interesting that all the edits seemed to be the work of one person. When I saw a Wikipedia article on the front page of Slashdot, I expected to find nothing but ruins at the other end for weeks.Sbonds 04:48, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'm unprotecting and monitoring this page for a while out of curiosity. If anyone wants to take over when I go home let me know, else I'll reprotect. silsor 00:02, Feb 11, 2004 (UTC)

I'll do it for awhile. Pakaran. 00:04, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I'm going home now. silsor 00:57, Feb 11, 2004 (UTC)


 * Ok, I can keep an eye on it. Pakaran. 00:58, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

My apologies for the troubles. I posted the article to slashdot, never imagining the troubles it could/would cause here. (w)


 * Don't apologize - we love publicity about the project, but naturally we don't like vandalism! :) Dysprosia 04:26, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the mention! Don't worry about us dealing with vandalism - we're well prepared to handle it, with lots of eyes and technical solutions in reserve if we find it happening fast enough that humans can't keep up.:) Jamesday 04:31, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Invisible image
James, what did you mean by "switch to image markup which doesn't result in a completely invisible image"? As far as I can see, the markup is the proper format for displaying it like that and I could see the image just fine on the rendered page. Bryan 04:36, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The |right| markup produces which is defined in the stylesheet as

div.floatright { float: right; margin: 0 0 1em 1em; }

James replaced it with

so I don't know why it would be invisible. silsor 04:39, Feb 11, 2004 (UTC)


 * Well, I guess I'll revert for the time being, then; if there's something wrong with the div style Wikipedia is producing then it's an issue that I guess will have to be corrected by the developers. Bryan 04:50, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

What I meant was that the image was completely invisible in IE4, just as if it wasn't there at all. Not a trace of it anywhere on the page. Looks OK in IE5 and 6 as well as Mozilla but invisible isn't good. The replacement I did avoids whatever in the css style is causing the problem. Jamesday 06:42, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * As far as I'm aware, the wiki markup I'm using here is intended to be the "wave of the future" for Wikipedia; it's the hot new thing for floating images. If there's a problem with how IE4 displays it, I think that should be marked down as a bug report. Bryan 06:47, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

now second furthest drive
Opportunity just passed it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SpeedEvil (talk • contribs) 20:37, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

KGB midget
Last year there was some news story to say that NASA has purchased the russian's video and photo archive of Lunokhod imagery and using computer enhancement to gain several thousand new high quality on-site photos of the lunar surface. This should probably get in the article.

Also why there is no mention of the "KGB midget" hoax in the article?
 * I mean this: http://www.astronautix.com/astros/kgbdwarf.htm


 * Why is there no mention of the KGB midget? Because it is a bunch of bullcrap and it is not encyclopedic.

User:Andy120290|Andy120290]] 19:42, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, before I Left the Ukraine in 1993, I read an article in some publication, dedicated to a suicide manned Moon mission by Soviets. It was very factitious, provided exact dates, times, and names of the cosmonauts. It was not related to the Lunokhod program, more of competition to beat Apollo to the Moon. I do not remember any specifics, but have no doubt one of our compatriots might read this note and find the article, sooner or later. Interestingly enough, Soviets did have a lunar mission right before the Apollo take off, pronounced "failed" and never made public. Per History Channel show yesteday, 12/08/07, Secrets of Soviet Space Program, that mission was launched succesfully, but lunar module crashed into the lunar surface. It was described as "unmanned".

Though might be "displaced", besides having personal experience doubts into History Channels trustworthness where it relates to the USSR (38 years of life there probably counts some against their "documentaries"), I have an observation from that show: though heavily leaning towards depicting Soviets as "losers" and even insinuating theft of American designs, why it does say NOTHING about Lunokhod program, while just drooling over success of the Apollo program and American might in space? I mean, answer is obvious, but for pete's sake, thing was number one rover robot on another celestial body and still beats any American rover by the length of use and distance traveled. Give guys a credit!

Apollo 17 landing site.
I have read that Lunokhod 2 took pictures of the Apollo 17 landing site, but I can't find those pictures anywhere on the 'net. Does anybody know where I can find them? I want to show them to a friend of mine who beleives in the Apollo conspiracy theories. The Soviets would have loved to prove the Apollo missions were hoaxed (which is possibly why they visited the site in the first place) so the fact that a Soviet probe photographed the site kinda proves that the Apollo missions were not faked. So if anyone can find those pictures for me, it'd be great, and perhaps they can be put on this article if they're licensed correctly. Nick Warren (talk) 17:05, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

This sounds like one of those urban myths. Lunokhod 2 landed at Le Monnier crater at 25.85 N 30.45 E which is 180 km from the Apollo 17 landing site. Between Jan 1973 and May 1973 when the robot finally died it had travelled 37 km nowhere near thew distance it would need to reach the Apollo 17 site. Only years later was the reason for its sudden demise revealed. As the drivers were trying to manoever it out of a crater the open lid touched the crater wall dumping soil on the solar cells. There were no immediate consequences as there was still sufficient power to to operate the rover. However when night fell and the lid was closed soil was dumped on the radiators. When the lid was opened the next lunar day in June the soil acted as an insulator preventing the rover from releasing heat. It quickly overheated and expired. 4 August 2008. Mstanaway (talk) 11:31, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a primary source for that info on Lunokhod 2's demise Mstanaway? (I came across the same story once but don't remember where). It should be added to the Lunokhod 2 article. Tweesdad 17:06, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I found the account in 'Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration' by Brian Harvey p271 published by Springer/Praxis books. The reference given there for the story is from an article in 'Air and Space' Vol 18, #6, Feb/Mar 2004 'The Other Moon Landings" by Andrew Chaikin. There is a lot of other interesting info on the Lunokhod missions in Harvey's book.Mstanaway (talk) 12:22, 17 August 2008 (UTC) Here is a couple of other Lunokhod gems from the same source: The first attempt to launch a Lunokhod was aborted in February 1969 when the UR 500 Proton launch vehicle failed when excessive vibration tore off the launch shroud and the rocket exploded scattering debris 15 km downrange. For months afterwards, teams tried to recover the Polonium nuclear isotope intended to keep instrumentation in the Lunokhod pressurised container warm during the lunar night. It later transpired that some insufficiently briefed local troops had found the container and were using it to keep their hut warm during a particularly cold winter! This failure was the start of an incredibly unlucky string of disasters which afflicted the Soviet moon programme at a time when they were trying to upstage the American Apollo programme during the first half of 1969.

A team of five operators based at Simferopol in the Crimea near the big tracking dishes at Yevpatoria operated Lunokhod. Two teams took alternating shifts and each consisted of a commander, a driver, a navigator, an engineer, and a radio/antenna man. Operating Lunokhod from 380,000 km away was a tense business requiring a high degree of co-ordination between the team members. During the first few days excitement was such that scientists, academicians, and journalists crowded mission control and began offering advice like “Mind that crater!” or “He’s going to crash into that rock!” The situation was so tense that when the drivers’ pulses reached 140, Babakin the director, finally had enough and ordered the chorus of back seat drivers out of the control room to reduce the stress on the team. It was quickly determined that the cameras were mounted too low on the body of Lunokhod with the view being similar to someone crawling across the ground on their hands and legs and the 20 second per frame transmission rate was too slow as drivers had to memorise features a full third of a minute before they were on top of them. These faults were rectified on Lunokhod 2. Also operations had to be halted at lunar noon (two earth days) as the landscape was washed out and there were no shadows to pick out features.Mstanaway (talk) 12:10, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

- "A team of five operators based at Simferopol in the Crimea near the big tracking dishes at Yevpatoria operated Lunokhod" - this is big error. About Yevpatoria Deep Space Tracking Facility(it only for Soviet Mars-Venus space programs) see here http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/radioind/Russdeep/ADU1000.htm.

Quote of report NATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERPRETATION CENTER 1969 about SIMFEROPOL SPACE FLIGHT CENTER: - The facility, apparently the most significant tracking facility in the Soviet Union, contains the largest number of antennas, the largest area, and the most personnel of any of the Soviet tracking facilities. The facility is one of a network of ten facilities which contain earth satellite vehicle tracking equipment and provide command/control for Soviet near-space events. Additionally, this facility apparently supports lunar programs in association with the Yevpatoriya Deep Space Tracking Facility. Simferopol Space Flight Center (Figure 1), the largest tracking facility in the Soviet Union, is 11 nautical miles (nm) northwest of the town of Simferopol in the Crimea. It is approximately 34 nm of the Yevpatoriya Deep Space Tracking Facility which directly associated with this center. Antennas present at this center provide an excellent capability for tracking and communicating with near- and deep-space vehicles, in addition to collecting and evaluating telemetry. The Flim Flam component can track, command, and control various types of Soviet space vehicles. Simferopol is one of ten facilities that contain this component. The center may be subdivided into four functional areas: the main operations area;the telemetry collection area; the interferometer area; and the general support area (Figure 1). The general support area and the main operations area are adjoining areas which comprise 287 of the 340 acres of the facility. The remaining two areas are physically separated; one on the east side of the main operations area and one on the west side. This separation is probably because of the need for isolating the sensitive receiving equipment situated at these locations. ... 105-Foot Tracking Dish(TNA-400) This component is located in the southern portion of the main operations area. It consists of a 105-foot tracking dish mounted on an azimuth/elevation pedestal (item 153),a large U-shaped control building (item 152), control/support buildings (items 147, 148 and 164), and several small support buildings. Adjacent to the antenna and on two sides arc rosette patterns of devices/structures which are used when the dish has been lowered for maintenance or modification. A crane used to lower and erect the dish is present on the latest coverage. An unidentified antenna/antenna mount is present on the northeast end of item 164. A 105-foot dish antenna such as this one would permit communications and telemetry reception at lunar distances. The antenna is operational.

Legacy
The engineers behind the Lunokhod also worked on remote controlled vehicles used to clean up after the Chernobyl disaster as well as consultants for the Sojourner (rover) and Mars Exploration Rover. Should this go into the article? // Liftarn (talk)


 * I've just added a write-up for the Chernobyl legacy part. 91.83.26.231 (talk) 21:30, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

I heard that they worked on the planned ESA Mars rovers too. If you can find good sources for these, by all means be bold and include them! Tweesdad 20:13, 12 August 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tweesdad (talk • contribs)

"According to a French documentary TV film"- More information can be found in the book "Planetohods". Author Kemurdzhian A.L, Lunochod's chief designer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.110.6.202 (talk) 10:48, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Data enhancement
A few years ago I ran across a website about a project to apply modern computer technology to the tapes used to record the video images from the Lunokhod rovers. The images published in the 70's were made by photographing low-resolution video monitors, but the images transmitted were recorded at their full resolution on magnetic tape. The site showed a few images made directly from the tapes, next to the originally published images. The new ones were at least twice as good as the originals. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bizzybody (talk • contribs) 06:16, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I know there is a similar program for the Lunar Orbiter images. I don't know if this is what you are thinking about or not.--SkiDragon (talk) 06:43, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Language
Any preference for language in the article? I just undid a rather sudden and unexplained switch to UK English. Discussion and consensus on what people really want would be helpful. --Lexein (talk) 10:12, 2 January 2012 (UTC)


 * WP:ENGVAR says that unless an article has close ties to British or American English, it should remain in whatever form the article was created with. This article has been using American English, so it should continue to do so.  Stepho  talk 12:25, 2 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I belatedly noticed the title: "Lunokhod "Programme" - so presumably the consensus will also result in a definitive naming decision. --Lexein (talk) 14:10, 2 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Also found American style dates and 'laborers'. WP:ENGVAR says the article should be consistent but this one could be a toss of the coin - as long as it is by consensus. Note: I'm Australian, so I personally prefer British English but I'm not going to force my own preferences onto the situation.  Stepho  talk 22:12, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Lunokhod programme. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20081226123643/http://www.cbc.ca:80/natureofthings/magazine2.html to http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/magazine2.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 05:24, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Lunokhod programme. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150904043800/http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/978-0-8032-3446-8-Infinity-Beckoned,677015.aspx?skuid=25752 to http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/978-0-8032-3446-8-Infinity-Beckoned,677015.aspx?skuid=25752

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 07:11, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Sandman Lunokhod incident
Since others might wonder or even try to add that incident in the future, here is what I know:

Today I found out that the "Sandmännchen incident" probably is untrue (a myth). Here is the Sandmännchen incident as I have read it in several places on the Interent over the years (and some background too):

Back in the 1970s the East German Sandmännchen stop motion animation TV programme was very popular in eastern Europe and also in parts of western Europe. The animators wanted to make an episode where the Sandman went to space. So they sent a letter to the Soviet space program asking for advice. In return they got a letter from the Soviet engineers including a set of detailed drawings of the Lunokhod lander and rover. So they built that and aired that TV episode. (To see good images from that episode search the web for "Sandmännchen Lunochod".) Imagine the surprise of the bosses of the Soviet space program when they saw their top secret (not yet published and launched) space system on prime time children's TV. Thankfully they realised it was good publicity so they didn't send the engineers to Siberia.

I was surprised to not find anything about the "Sandmännchen incident" in this article. I have heard about that incident several times. (And I saw that Sandman TV episode as a kid and loved it!) So I also checked the Sandmännchen article. And also checked both articles in German Wikipedia too. And all their talk pages. But no mention of the incident.

So I did some web searching and found out that the Sandman incident probably is a myth. This article (in what seems to be the official Sandmännchen web site) states that that TV episode was aired in 1973. Since the first succesfull Lunokhod landing was in 1970 I assume the Soviets published news about Lunokhod well before that TV episode aired.

Anyway, thanks for a very nice article. --David Göthberg (talk) 12:17, 6 September 2020 (UTC)