[FPSPACE] Lunokhod 2 panorama's

[Geert Sassen]

Astro0, one of the UMSF wizards, already created a first processed image
from the raw data, which is absolutely fabulous,
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=2698&view=findpost&p=147475
Some
of the images might allow construction of 3D images which would be very
interesting so many years after the actual flight.
It's a pity these images are still (watermarked) scan's from the originals,
somewhere there must be tapes with the original data, which would be so much
more worthwhile. People like Don Mitchell and the UMSF team already showed
how the original data from for instance the Venera landers and the early
Luna probes far outreaches anything we are used to seeing in the normal
publications.

The camera's on these probes, as well as on the Lunokhods, were very good
and advanced and produced very sharp images indeed, however these were then
printed on terrible quality paper, scanned, re-printed, etc and distributed
in a form which doesn't do any credit to the actual originals. Weird indeed
that, with so much propaganda-value, they never seemed to have made any
attempt to distribute the images in such a way that would do credit to them.

Regarding the tracks, it is clearly visible how the steering of the
Lunokhods differed from Spirit/Oppy and the moonrovers, the Lunokhods did
not have steerable wheels but were steered like a tank, increasing rpm on
one side and decreasing rpm on the other, which is a more crude method but
has the advantage of less moving parts on the craft. Especially with
Lunokhod 2 the area does seem to be much more dusty then on the Apollo sites
and certainly more dusty then MER encounters on Mars. Tracks are often
clearly very deep down in the dust, must have taken a lot of power to plough
through that stuff. Driving those lunokhods real time from earth must have
been something special, completely different from how the MER craft are
operated.

Regards,

Geert Sassen
On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 12:42 PM, David Portree <dsfportree at hotmail.com>wrote:

>  Geert:
>
> Great stuff. I love the pans that show the rover's own tracks. Very
> reminiscent of Spirit and Opportunity.
>
> Many thanks for the link.
>
> David S. F. Portree
>
> dsfportree at hotmail.com
> dportree at usgs.gov
>
> http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/
>
> http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/About/People/DavidPortree/
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> From: geert at navtools.nl
> Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2009 02:56:17 +0000
> To: FPSPACE at friends-partners.org
> Subject: [FPSPACE] Lunokhod 2 panorama's
>
>
> Good day,
> looks like the Russians have finally found and released all of the Lunokhod
> 2 panorma pictures.
>
> Very cool stuff:
> http://planetology.ru/panoramas/lunokhod2.php?language=english
>
> Regards,
>
> Geert.
> --
> Geert Sassen
>
>
>
>
> --
> Geert Sassen
> weblog: http://geertsassen.web-log.nl
>
>
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-- 
Geert Sassen
weblog: http://geertsassen.web-log.nl
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