Lunokhod 1

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Lunokhod 1 and 2 were a pair of exceptionally successful robotic moon rovers that the Soviet Union sent to the moon in 1970 and 1973. Owing to the politics of the time this remarkable achievement went largely unnoticed in the west.

The eight-wheeled rovers were about the size of a small car, and in fact they were intended to act as safety/escape vehicles to support manned lunar expeditions.

Lunokhod '0' was destroyed when its launch vehicle exploded in 1969, but Lunokhod's 1 and 2 were successful. Lunokhod 3 was never launched and is on display in the Lavochin Museum.

I had a fascination with the Lunokhod program as a youngster, fuelled by the almost complete lack of information about the missions. When I got a 3D printer I discovered that no-one appears to have made one before, although there are some excellent conventional models. So I put that right and made my own Lunokhod 1.