Russia aims to restart telescope shut down by Germany as protest over Ukraine war

Russia has said that it will restart the eROSITA telescope which was put in safe mode by Germany's Max Planck Institute as a sign of protest against the Ukraine invasion. In a recent televised interview, Russia’s Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin said that Moscow would restart the telescope against Germany’s wish if it has to. eROSITA is one of the two telescopes inside the Russian-made Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma (Spektr-RG) satellite which was launched in 2019 to map black holes and galaxy clusters. 

Rogozin gives instructions to restore the telescope

The Roscosmos chief said that he has given instructions to restore the German telescope so it can work together with the Russian one. “They– the people that made the decision to shut down the telescope– don't have a moral right to halt this research for humankind just because their pro-fascist views are close to our enemies”, Rogozin said as per Deutsche Welle (DW). He added that Roscosmos will reveal its relevant decisions in the future. 

Notably, the satellite was developed under a collaboration between Roscosmos and the German space agency (DLR) and is currently located at the Lagrange point, about 15 lakh kilometres from Earth. It began its observations in 2019 but three years into its mission, the telescope from the German side has remained in “safe mode” since February 26. A few days, later, DLR announced that it is suspending all cooperative projects with Russia in protest of the latter’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine. So far, eROSITA has completed four of its eight planned sky-surveys and data from the first four is being evaluated by scientists.

Restarting the telescope without Germany can be detrimental

While Rogozin is adamant about restarting the telescope, the scientific director of the Spekr-RG project has warned that doing so without Germany’s assistance can prove detrimental to the mission. Russian astrophysicist Rashid Sunyaev said as per DW that this move of Russia can lead to the device’s breakdown and added that "unilateral action in this situation only adds more mistrust between people."