Landing of the probes Luna 23 and Luna 24 remains an enigma

• The anomalous phase-ratio image of the Luna 24 landing site suggests misidentification.
• Analysis of Luna 23 and 24 computer models does not confirm the original identification.
• We found noticeable inconsistencies with results by Dolgopolov et al. (2013).
• Geological arguments and multispectral analyses also are ambiguous for identification.

The landing sites of the landers of Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 as well as Luna 16, 20, and 23 spacecraft are all located within specific phase-ratio anomalies caused by the engine jets. The landing site identified as that of the Luna 24 spacecraft, however, was not located within its corresponding anomaly, leading Shkuratov et al. (2013) to suggest that this may be due to the misidentification of the Luna 23 and 24 spacecraft in the LROC images, since the Luna 23 landing was not successful. Dolgopolov et al. (2013) synthesized images of the Luna spacecraft as they might appear in the LROC images, using a model made by the Lavochkin Association. They found similarity of the spacecraft seen in the LROC images with the synthetic images corresponding to successful and unsuccessful missions and concluded that the original identification of the Luna 23 and 24 spacecraft in the images by Robinson et al. (2012) is likely correct. However, Dolgopolov et al. (2013) used only one illumination geometry for each landing site. As distinct from Dolgopolov et al. (2013) we make a similar analysis using a 3D computer spacecraft model using several different illuminations of the spacecraft and show that the orientations used by Dolgopolov are inconsistent with other LROC images, and it is impossible to make a reliable conclusion based on these analyses. We also show that geologic arguments presented by Dolgopolov et al. (2013) are ambiguous. Using Lucey et al.’s (1995) technique and multispectral images acquired with the Kaguya MI camera (resolution ~20 m), we show that small areas around the landing sites of the probes have almost the same contents of FeO and TiO2, as well as fairly close maturity degree of the regolith.