Lunar rover - Definition and Overview

Lunar Rover-Manned land vehicle (NASA)

The Lunar Rover was a manned land vehicle for transport on the Moon. It was transported in the Apollo Lunar Module, which was part of the Apollo spacecraft.

It was used for greater surface mobility during the Apollo program J-class missions: (Apollo 15, Apollo 16, and Apollo 17). The rover was first used on July 31, 1971 during the Apollo 15 mission. This greatly expanded the range of the lunar explorers. Previous teams of astronauts were restricted to short walking distances around the landing site due to the bulky spacesuit equipment required to sustain life in the harsh lunar environment. The rovers have a top speed of about 8 mph (12.9 km/h).

They have been abandoned and thus belong to the artificial objects currently on the Moon; even if they could have been carried, given the weight restraints at lift-off, taking Moon samples to Earth was more important, of course.

The Soviet Union also landed unmanned rovers on the Moon, named Lunokhod 1 and Lunokhod 2.

See also: Manned space missions, Unmanned space missions

External links

Lunar Rover diagram. (NASA)

• Boeing Lunar Rover Vehicle Operations Handbook (http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/lrvhand.html)