According to one of the sources, Alexander Ivanov, the first deputy director general of Roscosmos, may be fired. He supervises the entire technical side of the state enterprise and heads the state commission for the launch of “Luna-25” Agree to the final protocol in writing about the readiness of the investigation.
Scapegoat
Ivanov worked at Roscosmos from 2013 to 2018. One of Izvesti’s three interlocutors confirmed that he returned to the state enterprise only a year ago, and it is difficult to blame him for what happened.
Another candidate for resignation is Mikhail HailovDeputy General Director of Space Complexes and Systems at Roscosmos. According to the source, Hailov will likely be fired, and Ivanov may eventually be reprimanded.
Personnel who worked directly on the lander may also be responsible for the failure of the lunar mission Scientists and programmerswho attended its launch. And in this case, specialists from NPO Lavochkin – the Russian airline and the main contractor of the Luny-25 project – will be responsible. The same fate may befall the employees of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who Preparing the scientific program for the mission.
Dark clouds over the space program
The Russian space program has failed for a reason Corruption, mismanagement and penalties Bruce McClintock, a senior researcher at RAND Corp. — The Russians had been waiting for this event for a long time, and it was practically so last chance To restore their credibility in deep space exploration.
According to one of the sources of “Izvestia” Problems began in the space industry that led to the crash of the craft Long before the work of the current Roscosmos teamBut perhaps the current managers will have to answer this question.
Luna-25 crashed while performing pre-landing maneuvers. According to preliminary data, the cause of the accident was Engine malfunction. As explained by the head of Roskosmos, Yuri Borisov, the engine worked longer than necessary – instead of 84 seconds, it ran for 127. During this time, the descent vehicle was correcting its orbit, so the error turned out to be fatal – Luna lost speed and simply crashed into the moon.
Yuri Borisov
A valuable lesson for the future?
Borisov, the head of Roscosmos, said the failure of the mission was an “invaluable experience”. He attributed the failure to approx 50 years of stopping in the research programme. He stressed that scientists and engineers “need to learn about this technology again,” so “no one can guarantee success.” After the accident, a special commission was appointed, and the results of its work will be taken into account in this process Planning for future missions.
Luna-25 was the first Russian lander to be launched to an Earth satellite since 1976. Its flight was originally scheduled for 2014, but eventually It has been postponed eight times.
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