The Soviet Moon Robot That Was Lost for 40 Years

[00:00:00]In 1970, the Soviet Union parked a remotec controlled robot on the moon.

[00:00:04][music] They drove it for 10 months.

[00:00:06]Then they lost it for 40 years. Lanekod 1 was the first wheeled vehicle to ever move on another world. Eight wheels, solar panels, a radioactive heater to survive lunar nights. Soviet engineers in Crimea drove it by television from Earth. [music] It covered 10 12 km across the sea of rains, returned 20,000 photographs, [music] tested the soil 500 times. more lunar science than anything that had come before. Then it went silent in February 1971. Engineers knew roughly where it had landed, but the precise coordinates were never made [music] public. For nearly 40 years, no one could find it. In 2010, NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photographed that region of the moon and found a tiny dot that didn't belong. Lanod 1, sitting exactly where it had stopped. Scientists fired a laser at the [music] spot. The 40-year-old reflector on the rover responded. The machine no one could find had been waiting in the dust the whole time. [music] Another faint signal from the void. Follow for the next