3. A response to the successes of Apollo 11, the landing of Lunokhod 1 on November 17, 1970, saw the first lunar rover embark upon a historic journey across the surface of the Moon
Following the failure of Lunokhod 0 (No.201) in February 1969, which had failed to reach orbit, Lunokhod 1 was launched on November 10, 1970, to become the first remote-controlled robotic rover to move across the surface of a foreign celestial object. Entering lunar orbit on November 15, the lander performed a soft-landing two days later in the Sea of Rains on the Moon. Although designed for a highly limited lifespan of just three lunar days, the approximate equivalent of three Earth months, Lunokhod 1 in fact operated for eleven lunar days, almost an entire Earth year, during which time it traveled a distance of 10.54 kilometers.
Operating during the daytime and hibernating at night to preserve battery power, the rover, measuring 2.3 meters in length, was equipped with four television cameras, a range of x-ray technologies, and an antenna for data transfer. Across a combined 322 days of operation, Lunokhod 1 returned in excess of 20,000 images, including 206 high-resolution panoramas, as well as twenty-five soil analyses and constant readings of the lunar surface. Whilst originally thought lost after deactivating, in 2010 the historic rover was identified in modern pictures of the Moon and determined to reside near the limb of the celestial body.