Lunokhod Programme - Chernobyl Legacy

Chernobyl Legacy

According to a French documentary TV film "Tank on the Moon" by Jean Afanassieff, the Lunokhod design returned to limelight 15 years later due to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster on April 26, 1986. The East German made remote controlled bulldozers available to Soviet civil defense troops weighed dozens of tons — too heavy to operate on the remaining parts of the partially collapsed reactor building roof. Human laborers could not be employed effectively to shovel debris, since work shifts were limited to 90 second intervals due to intense ionizing radiation.

Lunokhod designers were called back from retirement, and in two weeks rovers were made which used nuclear decay heat sources for internal rack climate control, their electronic systems were already hardened to resist radiation. This benefit allowed the 1986 designers to quickly devise a derived vehicle type for nuclear disaster recovery work. On July 15, two rovers, called STR-1, were delivered to the Chernobyl accident zone and proved useful for clearing debris, earning awards for the designers. Due to extremely high radiation levels, all rovers eventually failed, and human workers (later named liquidators) were called in.