Lunokhod refers to the Soviet Union's pioneering lunar rover programme, which deployed the first remote-controlled robots to explore the surface of the Moon. These rovers marked an important milestone in robotic space exploration in the early 1970s.
The Lunokhod programme successfully launched two rovers: Lunokhod 1 aboard Luna 17 in November 1970 and Lunokhod 2 via Luna 21 in January 1973. These vehicles weighed approximately 800 kg each and featured a pressurised, bathtub-shaped body with eight wheels for traversing the lunar terrain.
Operators on Earth controlled them in near real time, with signals taking about 5 seconds to travel back and forth.