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Chief designer of space rocket corporation Energiya Viktor Legostayev dies at 83

Legostayev’s successor will be named when the New Year holiday season is over

MOSCOW, January 8. /TASS/. The chief designer of Russia’s space rocket corporation Energiya, Viktor Legostayev, has died at 83 years of age, the corporations’ press-service said.

“Viktor Legostayev died on Thursday. The funeral will probably take place on January 13,” the source said without mentioning the cause of death.

Legostayev, b. June 6, 1931, a graduate of the Bauman Technical University, joined the Soviet space industry in 1955. He and his colleagues have to their credit a series of approach and docking control systems, including the control system for the Soyuz-19 spacecraft that participated in the Soyuz-Apollo Soviet-US space program.

Energiya Corporation’s CEO Vladimir Solntsev has described Legostayev’s death as a great loss for the national space industry.

“We are saying a final farewell to a true Russian intellectual, a remarkable specialist and one of the founding fathers of the space rocket industry. His death is a great loss. Just days ago we were discussing plans for the future. Even in old age Viktor remained a bright mind. Regrettably, time flies,” Solntsev said.

Legostayev’s successor will be named when the New Year holiday season is over.

“This is not the focal theme at the moment. I believe the issue will have to be discussed with the specialists, with Roscosmos and the United Space Rocket Corporation. Legostayev had many disciples. Some of them are with us today and may well contest this post. The industry can offer quite a few worthy candidates,” Solntsev told TASS.