Curiosity now roams Mars. And it landed safely via a totally unique lander system with the designers and engineers sweating bullets millions of miles away. It carries on the tradition of planetary exploration we saw with Spirit and Opportunity. But it also carries on in the tradition of a branch of exploration that I'd never heard of before watching the Science Channel the other night. Curiosity is the direct descendent of the Russian space program of the early 1970's.
Curiosity's grandparents were named Lunokhod 1 and Lunokhod 2, the first ROV's, (remotely operated vehicle), to have been sent outside the native gravity well we call Earth to roam another world.
The Soviet space program, after the triumphs of Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin, was racing with the United States towards the Moon, trying to maintain their lead and land people before the US could send Apollo 11 and claim the first humans to step on a world beyond Earth. But they were having trouble with their heavy lift Proton rockets. They kept, um, failing, rather spectacularly, putting the program too far behind the American schedule that landed Neil Armstrong & Co. on the lunar surface in 1969.
When it became apparent that they weren't going to be able to send a manned mission they changed tacks and started working on a remotely operated vehicle that could move itself and collect data and perform scientific measurements on the moon's surface.
I remember the moon landings but I was young enough to be bored by the static simulations that NASA used as placeholders during the broadcasts until something interesting happened. But I don't remember anything about Russian rovers wandering the moon when we'd gone home, so the Science Channel's Tank on the Moon, was a complete revelation. If you have broadband, it's worth taking the time to watch the show. For those of us who are broadband or cable impaired, I'll do a quick overview.
At the time, the only people who had anything approaching the skill set to develop and engineer something of this type were in the military, so they found and tapped a top tank designer, Alexander Kemurdjian to design the vehicle, named Lunokhod, or 'Moonwalker', (Wiki actually has pretty good coverage of the program). After months of trial and error, designing, fabricating, testing and then training recruits to operate the controls with what we would consider prehistoric video feedback monitors, the Lunokhod 1A was launched on February 19, 1969. And disintegrated as the rocket exploded just after liftoff.
The replacement was a much faster build, and gave the operators more time to practice maneuvers and contingency plans, (the video monitors loaded line by line and the entire image lasted only about 10 seconds before the next began to load, eek!).
The second launch, with its control room personnel sweating bullets, was successful and the Lunokhod 1 landed gently on the surface of the Moon on November 17th, 1970 in The Sea of Rains.
Lunokhod 1 had a very small nuclear (radio isotope decay) motor that kept the inner works warm when the ROV closed it's solar cell-lined lid and powered down every 14 days to hibernate through the two week long lunar night. The solar panel in the lid powered the six open mesh wheels plus several cameras and instruments.
Little Lunokhod 1 didn't just break trail, it set an example for the rovers that followed. It was designed for a 90 day mission. It ran for 8 months.
The more advanced Lunokhod 2 landed January 15, 1973 in the La Monnier Crater. Between the two ROVs, they covered over 30 miles of the lunar surface, sending back images, videos and an enormous amount of data from numerous instruments. Lunokhod 2 ran for 4 months and over 23 miles before it, too ran out of fuel and signed off.
The exploration of our world and universe is among our oldest impulses. Pushing the envelope and sweating bullets waiting to see if the risks are going to pay off or go bust are part of us. Building on the foundations and accomplishments of those who came before are how we progress. Fair winds and following seas, Curiosity, we can't wait to see what you send us
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Belated birthday greetings to Neil Armstrong and best wishes for a quick recovery from his cardiac bypass surgery last week.