00:00 On this day in space.
00:04 On January 8, 1973, the Soviet Union launched the Luna 21 mission to land a rover on the
00:09 moon.
00:10 This was the second time that the Soviet Union put a rover on the moon, and it was the sixth
00:14 successful lunar landing of the Luna program.
00:17 Like the other Luna missions, Luna 21 was an uncrewed robotic spacecraft.
00:21 It launched on a Proton rocket and touched down in the Lemonnier crater one week later.
00:26 About three hours after landing, it deployed the rover, Lunokhod 2.
00:30 The rover traveled about 24 miles and took more than 80,000 photos on the moon before
00:34 it accidentally rolled into a crater, where it got dust all over its solar panels and
00:38 died.
00:39 And that's what happened on this day in space.
00:42 NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
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