Expert help needed to decode rare piece of space history: Lunokhod data tapes
A lot of interesting details (and photos) about the onboard TV-photo system of the Lunokhod-1 could be found on [1].<p>Btw, it looks like the tapes indeed may contain the photos - the session dates seem to coincide with taking of panoramic shots, according to the official news coverage of the mission (mentioned earlier). Moreover, the red &quot;Ст.&quot; marks on the tape cover might just point to the &quot;Stereoscopic&quot; shots, which are produced by the cameras 2 and 4 (left-right pan). This also explains the &quot;even&quot; remark on the tape cover.<p>Also, the narrator mentions that the recording was done directly from FT console (Photo-Television), likely post-factum (??for lab analysis&#x2F;enhancement).<p>Wikipedia has a nice photo of the Control indication panel [2], the &quot;ФТ&quot; panel lights are on the right edge. There you could also spot SKU lights (&quot;СИСТЕМА КУРСОУКАЗАНИЯ&quot;, Course Guidance System) on the left bottom. Lights for RIFMA were likely on the bottom edge in Scientific Instruments group (covered in the photo by a description plaque).<p>Fun to learn about this. Thank you for the &quot;journey&quot;! It was truly a great achievement not just for people of USSR, but for the whole humankind. Hopefully, given the recent declassifying of some of the Soviet space-programs, it might be possible that there could be already available the images of the very panoramas possibly contained on the tapes (matching by the session dates).<p>Anybody knows of any online archives of images taken by Lunokhod-1? ...Well, answering it by myself: [3] is an excellent selection of historic shots of Moon from Soviet exploration efforts, lots of technical info about cameras and signals.<p>[1]:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kik-sssr.ru&#x2F;Lunohod-1.htm" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kik-sssr.ru&#x2F;Lunohod-1.htm</a> (in Russian)<p>[2]:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ru.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Луноход-1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ru.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Луно�%...</a><p>[3]:<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mentallandscape.com&#x2F;C_CatalogMoon.htm" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mentallandscape.com&#x2F;C_CatalogMoon.htm</a>