Thanks TD for your post which mentioned the Lunokhod rovers. Prior to reading it I didn't know (or had forgotten) that the Soviet Union had successfully made multiple unmanned moon landings. I now notice that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_1 says the following.
"Lunokhod 1 (Russian: Луноход-1 ("Moonwalker 1"), also known as Аппарат 8ЕЛ № 203 ("Device 8EL No. 203")) was the first of two robotic lunar rovers landed on the Moon by the Soviet Union as part of its Lunokhod program. The Luna 17 spacecraft carried Lunokhod 1 to the Moon in 1970. Lunokhod 1 was the first remote-controlled robot "rover" to freely move across the surface of an astronomical object beyond the Earth. It was also the first wheeled craft on another celestial body.
... Although only designed for a lifetime of three lunar days (approximately three Earth months), Lunokhod 1 operated on the lunar surface for eleven lunar days (321 Earth days) and traversed a total distance of 10.54 km.
... Lunokhod 1 was equipped with a cone-shaped antenna, a highly directional helical antenna, four television cameras, and special extendable devices to test the lunar soil for soil density and mechanical properties. An X-ray spectrometer, an X-ray telescope, cosmic ray detectors, and a laser device were also included."
https://www.space.com/35090-lunokhod-1.html ("Lunokhod 1: 1st Successful Lunar Rover") says the following.
"Lunokhod 1 was the first successful rover to explore another world. It
arrived on the moon on Nov. 17, 1970, upon the Luna 17 lander. Driven by
remote-control operators in the Soviet Union, it travelled more than 10
kilometers (6 miles) in just 10 months. By comparison, it took the Mars
Opportunity rover about six years to reach the same milestone.
... The Soviet Union had pinned its hopes of a manned moon landing on the
Zond rocket. However, following a series of test failures, including a
deadly launch pad explosion in 1968, the Soviet Union focused on other
moon programs instead. Among them was robotically landing a probe on the
moon, and operating a rover remotely.
Soviet
successes at the moon included Luna 3 (which took the first pictures of
its far side in 1959), Luna 9 (which made the first soft landing on the
moon in 1966, three years before Apollo 11's human landing) and Luna 16
(which returned samples from the moon in 1970). The next in the series,
Luna 17, carried a rover for remote operations.
... The success of Lunokhod 1 was repeated with Lunokhod 2 in 1973, which
eventually drove approximately 37 kilometers (22.9 miles) on the lunar
surface. It would take the Opportunity rover more than a decade to reach
that same milestone on Mars.
The Lunokhod 1 landing site has been imaged by NASA's high-resolution
lunar spacecraft, called the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. For example,
pictures from 2012 clearly show the lander, the rover and its lunar tracks. [Related: Lost Soviet Reflecting Device Rediscovered on the Moon]
The rover's retroreflector registered an especially striking "bounce" in 2010 when scientists tried to send a laser signal to it,
showing that it hadn't degraded from lunar dust or the elements. Lasers
have been used to measure the exact distance from the Earth to the
moon, principally using lasers from the Apollo missions.
After Lunokhod 2, no other mission soft-landed on the surface until the
Chinese space program sent Chang'e 3 and its rover, Yutu. The pair
landed in December 2013."
The accomplishments of the Soviet lunar rovers are fascinating and extremely impressive. I wish i had known of them much earlier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_crewed_lunar_programs says the Soviets flew live animals in a spacecraft around the moon. The article says the following. "In September 1968 Zond 5 carried the first Earth lifeforms, including two tortoises, to travel around the Moon and return safely."
Indoubtbigtime, the Soviet Union soft landed a probe on Mars in 1971.They also had sent orbiters in orbit abound Mars in the very early 1970s. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_3 which says the following.
'Mars 3 was a robotic space probe of the Soviet Mars program, launched May 28, 1971, nine days after its twin spacecraft Mars 2. The probes were identical robotic spacecraft launched by Proton-K rockets with a Blok D upper stage, each consisting of an orbiter and an attached lander. After the Mars 2 lander crashed on the Martian surface, the Mars 3 lander became the first spacecraft to attain a soft landing on Mars, on December 2, 1971. It failed 110 seconds after landing, having transmitted only a gray image with no details.[4] The Mars 2 orbiter and Mars 3 orbiter continued to circle Mars and transmit images back to Earth for another eight months.
... The primary purpose of the 4M-V orbiter was to study the topography of
the Martian surface; analyze its soil composition; measure various
properties of the atmosphere; monitor "solar radiation, the solar wind
and the interplanetary and martian magnetic fields".[5] In addition, it served as a "communications relay to send signals from the lander to Earth".'
