A top Russian astronomer, who was a pivotal player in the crashed Moon mission, has been rushed to hospital after the humiliating failure of Vladimir Putin's space operation.
Academician Mikhail Marov, 90, described as a key consultant to the mission, was rushed to hospital with a "sharp deterioration" in his health. This came as he demanded no cover-up for the reasons the lunar mission ended in disaster amid suspicions of endemic corruption in the space industry.
The Luna 25 was due to be Russia's first lunar landing mission in 47 years, with a planned soft landing on its south pole. But the unmanned aircraft failed to land after communication was interrupted, as it moved into its pre-landing orbit. Its failure is expected to trigger a blame game with Russian President Vladimir Putin firing those he holds responsible for Russia’s humiliation.
The Luna-25 taking off from a launch pad at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russian Far East on August 19 (AP)Professor Marov, who has been described in some reports as the mission's scientific director, was devastated over the failed landing and has reportedly made it clear this was the reason for his sudden hospitalisation in Moscow’s elite Central Clinical Hospital (TsKB). Luna-25 was his "last hope to see the revival of our lunar programme" and this was now dashed.
The Soviet-era space giant told reporters from the hospital: "I am under observation. How can I not worry? This has been very much a matter of my life. It's all very hard." He continued: "It’s sad that we didn’t manage to land the device. There was a mistake in the algorithms for launching into near-lunar orbit. It must be found. For the specialists who will be involved in the work of the commission, this will not be a big problem. I think the answer will be found in the foreseeable future."
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The robot, which is the size of a small car, blasted off on a Soyuz rocket in the Russian Far East and entered the moon's orbit on Wednesday. It was scheduled to land on the south pole of the moon today, racing against an Indian spacecraft.
India's Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft is scheduled to land on the Moon next week. No country has ever landed on the south pole before, although both the US and China have landed softly on the Moon's surface. Failure of the mission, personally ordered by Putin, underscores the decline of Russia's space power since the glory days of the Cold War. Roscosmos has been trying to prove itself as a "space superpower" since the invasion of Ukraine saw its experts lose access to Western technology.
Moscow was the first to launch a satellite to orbit the Earth - Sputnik 1, in 1957 - and Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to travel into space in 1961. Russian sources are already blaming endemic corruption inside the agency for the failure of the mission and Putin is expected to axe top space officials over the disaster. Russian sources are questioning the future of Yury Borisov, a Putin-loyalist and ex-deputy premier now at the helm of the Russian Space Agency.
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