National Space Agency Lunar Rovers

A class of full scale robotic rovers built and operated by national space agencies as the primary mobile science payload of a lunar landing mission, distinct from small novelty or technology demonstration rovers. China's Yutu-2, part of the China National Space Administration's Chang'e 4 mission, became the first rover to operate on the far side of the Moon after landing in January 2019, and by late 2019 had already become the longest lived lunar rover in history, surpassing the Soviet Lunokhod 1 record. India's Pragyan, developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation, formed part of the Chandrayaan-3 lander payload that achieved India's first successful lunar landing in 2023, following an earlier Pragyan rover lost in the Chandrayaan-2 mission's 2019 crash. Both rovers were deployed directly from a national lander onto the lunar surface to conduct in-situ surface and subsurface investigations on behalf of their sponsoring space agency, a role that separates this class from privately built demonstration rovers and from crewed lunar rovers.