Lunokhod in Chernobyl

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Lunokhod 1 was the first rover on the lunar surface landing on November 1970 (Luna 17, lifted by the rocket Proton-K) after the first unsuccessful mission Lunokhod 1A (0) in 1969. Rover was working for 11 month.

Lunokhod was remote controlled robot. The rover worked during the lunar day, stopping for charging the batteries via the solar panels. Rover hibernated during the lunar night. The internal components were heated by radioisotope heater unit to keep operational temperature. The rover consisted of TV cameras, spectrometer, X-ray telescope, radiation detector, and extendable devices to get the lunar soil. The weight of the rover was 840 kg and was 135 cm high.

Lunokhod 2 was the second Soviet unmanned lunar rover, which was taken by Luna 21 on the Moon in January 1973.  This mission was supposed to be followed by Lunokhod 3 in 1977, but the mission was cancelled.

Chernobyl accident is very well known disaster in the history. It occurred on April 25-26, 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near the town Pripyat (now abandoned) in northern Ukraina (previously Soviet Union) about 104 km from Kiev.  

The event was caused as a result of test during the night. There are a lot of conspiration theories, or just I mean open questions, where only certain people can answer. During the accident two people died directly after the explosion. Over following days and weeks 134 people working on the disaster removal were hospitalized from which 14 has died, another 28 firemen and employees died from the radiation effect. Childhood thyroid cancer were followed in the following years, as the disease increased in the wider population compared to the normal situation. Unfortunately detailed studies are missing due to missing efforts to solve the problem. Clearly, but this I will leave on more sophisticated readers own consideration.

What I would like to focus on is the technology used in this accident. Somebody can say that it wasn't successful as I will write later. But it still shows importance of collaboration and development of technology, which can be used in different fields.

STR-1

Human laborers were shoveling debris in 90 seconds intervals due to high radiation. Lunokdod designers were called back to help to solve the problem. Lunokhod designers made within 2 weeks rovers, called STR 1, with electronics partly protected against the radiation. Rovers were controlled via cable, which became contaminated and the rovers manoeuvrability reduced. The cable also got all the time blocked on the way and due to low temperatures it got less flexible. In the end, due to the problems and high radiation both rovers failed. Human workers were called again.

And the rest in the history….. :-(

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