Nov. 10, 1970: The Soviets Send Robots to the Moon

Washington
—

By the late 1960s, the Soviet Union, r

ealizing

�that they would lose the race with the United States to put the first human on the Moon, redirected

�

their focus on a new aspect of lunar exploration. A year after the U.S. Apollo 11 mission touched down

on the Moon, the

Soviets

sent the first of a new breed of off-world explorers – the Lunokhod 1

�robotic rover – to the

lunar

surface

with the launch of its Luna 17 lander.