Where did the Luna 23 and 24 spacecraft land?: Comparing the spacecraft seen in LROC NAC images with synthetic images

•Luna 23 and 24 landers were identified in LROC NAC images by Robinson et al. (2012).•Shkuratov et al. (2013) photometric study suggested that this identification was wrong.•We compare the landers seen in LROC images with the lander computer models.•The analysis of the lander shapes, shadow configuration and sizes has been done.•The analysis showed that identification of Robinson et al. (2012) was correct.

Shkuratov et al. (2013) described specific photometric anomalies found around the Luna 16, 20 and 23 spacecraft and not found around the Luna 24 spacecraft. The authors explained this lack of an anomaly at the Luna 24 site as a result of the misidentification of the Luna 23 and 24 spacecraft in the LROC images by Robinson et al. (2012). In order to address this question, we synthesized images of the Luna spacecraft as they might appear in the LROC images (made by the Lavochkin Association, builders of the Luna spacecraft series). We compared the model images of the virtual Luna 23 and Luna 24 spacecraft sitting on the lunar surface with the spacecraft seen in the LROC images and concluded, on the basis of similarity of the spacecraft seen in the LROC images with the synthetic images, that identification of the spacecraft in these images by Robinson et al. (2012) is likely correct.